Monthly Archives: June 2022

Spacecraft Orion on orbit of Earth planet. Spaceship in space. Expedition to Moon. Artemis program. ... [+] Elements of this image furnished by NASA (url: https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width_feature/public/thumbnails/image/iss060e007297.jpg https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/image_card_4x3_ratio/public/images/719829main_Orion_Arrays_02_full.jpg)

The year 2030 sounds a bit like science fiction. But here we are only a little more than seven years from that auspicious date and were still waiting for a human return to the Moon and a human mission to Mars. Were almost a third of the way through this new 21st century. Thus, Id argue that its time we started living up to at least a few of our science fiction-esque aspirations.

Here are five space exploration goals that we need to hit by decades end.

-- A human return to the Moon with some sort of South Pole permanent lunar toehold.

Its already 2022 and NASAs Artemis program has been pushed back by a combination of Covid and a change in the American presidential administration. The earliest projections for Artemis to land a crew on the lunar surface at this point is no sooner than 2025.

Artemis should just be the beginning of a human presence on the Moon, that should see some sort of permanent fixture in the form of an outpost thats not necessarily even permanently occupied but which can be accessed from a lunar-orbiting gateway. Whether that turns out to be the gateway thats been touted for the last decade by both NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), or something thats less ambitious remains to be seen. But such a gateway could serve as both a refuge and staging facility for human missions to and from the surface.

- An honest and realistic timeline for a public private partnership to send astronauts to Mars.

Its very doubtful that Elon Musk and SpaceX will be able to do a human-rated Mars launch by 2030. But by decades end, its still possible to have a solid, funded plan for a future human mission to Mars. 2040 is probably more realistic for launching astronauts to Mars, assuming the Mars transfer craft would use nuclear-powered engines capable of getting a crew to Mars within 4 to 6 months.

I would opt for a boots on the ground surface mission with some sort of Mars orbital gateway in place to serve as a sanctuary for astronauts heading to and from the surface. Such a Mars gateway could be in place by 2035, well in advance of a late 2030s launch of a four astronaut Mars crew.

A close up image of an astronaut on Mars kneeling and looking at a rocket in the distance. The ... [+] spaceman or spacewoman is dressed in full space suit viewed from behind, kneeling on rocks and looking into the distance at Mars base camp and rocket in the distance.

Although many wonder why we should expend the effort to send humans to Mars for a surface stay of only 30 days, its an inevitability that is long overdue. We dont have to necessarily colonize Mars. But its within realistic reach of our technological spaceflight capabilities at present and like climbing Mount Everest, it would test our mettle as a species.

In many ways, having a comprehensive understanding of Mars is key to having a comprehensive understanding of our geological and evolutionary history here on Earth.

A crewed NASA mission to Mars is now not thought to be possible before 2037, however.

- A credible interstellar precursor mission that would test new propulsion technologies.

I personally am not a fan of tiny laser sail interstellar propulsion technology. Instead, I say lets make a concerted effort to build next generation space propulsion technology that would enable an end-of-century human-rated voyage to the solar systems far distant Oort Cloud. The Oort Cloud is a very wide massive body of leftover cometary debris thought to orbit our solar system at distances of up to three light years.

Astronauts wont make the Oort Cloud anytime soon. But theres no reason why we cant launch a precursor interstellar probe by 2030. NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) worked on several interstellar precursor mission ideas in the 1990s and should return to that effort. Even so, as I noted here previously, a $2 billion spacecraft bound for 200 A.U. (astronomical units) or Earth-Sun distances is far enough out to get a real notion of the pristine interstellar medium. And its also likely that ground-controllers could track the spacecraft out to 1000 A.U.

If our robotic probes and eventually we humans are to ever travel to the stars, we need to be launching a plethora of robotic probes with the imperative being that each new spacecraft is faster than its predecessor. Only then will we bridge the distance gap between the inner and outer solar system.

- The launch of an orbital mission to Pluto

NASAs New Horizons flyby mission to the dwarf planet Pluto and the Kuiper Belt inspired us all with its exquisite display of speed, navigation and timing. Kudos to all involved. But New Horizons also opened a scientific Pandoras Box at Pluto. That one mission forever changed planetary sciences view of Pluto from an inscrutable, out of focus blob into a surprisingly geologically active terrestrial ice world just begging to be explored.

Thus, it only makes sense to send a combination robotic orbiter and small rover to Pluto. The mission would be equipped with enough science instruments to totally rewrite the textbooks yet again. With a nominal year-long orbital mission circling Pluto, the missions rover could be sent to sample the surface in situ and relay its data to the orbiter for relay back to Earth.

Given such a missions estimated $3 billion cost and the likely need for technology development, the mission would likely not see launch until 2035. But by 2030, it could be fully funded and under construction.

- The launch of a sample return mission to the dwarf planet Ceres.

Although flyby missions to Enceladus and Europa are often touted as the easiest way to find signs of extant microbial life in our own solar system, given our present technology, the launch of a combination orbiter and sample return mission to the relatively nearby dwarf planet Ceres is doable by the end of this decade.

A $3 billion sample return mission could land at the dwarf planets geologically compelling Occator Crater. A Main Belt 950-km-diameter asteroid, located about two A.U. from Earth, Ceres may have hosted a mudball interior that could persist to this day. NASA estimates that some 35-km below its icy surface, Ceres may still harbor a muddy mixture of liquid and rock. If so, a lander mission to Ceres could, in theory, return a pristine 100-gram sample for analysis back on Earth.

Even if Ceres ends up not having evidence for extant or past life, planetary scientists could learn much by sampling one of the oldest planetary bodies in our inner solar system and pave the way for more robotic surface exploration of our Main Asteroid Belt.

Artists concept of the Dawn spacecraft entering orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres. In late ... [+] November 2015 Dawn will descend to its closest orbit around Ceres at a distance of about 230 miles. While no close-up observations of yet been made of Ceres itself, here it is rendered as appearing similar to a much smaller version of the Earths Moon, heavily cratered with the addition of surface water ice and hypothesized plumes of ice crystals from water geysers on its surface. In February 2015 the unmanned Dawn spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at the dwarf planet Ceres. The 65 foot long, 2.5 ton probe was launched from the Earth in 2007, passed Mars in 2009, and went into orbit around the protoplanet Vesta in July 2011 where it stayed until September 2012. Once in orbit around Ceres, Dawn is expected to operate for about a year making observations of this largest object in the asteroid belt.

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5 Space Exploration Imperatives To Hit By 2030 - Forbes

The rovers weather sensors witnessed daily whirlwinds and more while studying the Red Planet.

During its first couple hundred days in Jezero Crater, NASAs Perseverance Mars rover saw some of the most intense dust activity ever witnessed by a mission sent to the Red Planets surface. Not only did the rover detect hundreds of dust-bearing whirlwinds called dust devils, Perseverance captured the first video ever recorded of wind gusts lifting a massive Martian dust cloud.

A paper recently published in Science Advances chronicles the trove of weather phenomena observed in the first 216 Martian days, or sols. The new findings enable scientists to better understand dust processes on Mars and contribute to a body of knowledge that could one day help them predict the dust storms that Mars is famous for and that pose a threat to future robotic and human explorers.

Every time we land in a new place on Mars, its an opportunity to better understand the planets weather, said the papers lead author, Claire Newman of Aeolis Research, a research company focused on planetary atmospheres. She added there may be more exciting weather on the way: We had a regional dust storm right on top of us in January, but were still in the middle of dust season, so were very likely to see more dust storms.

Perseverance made these observations primarily with the rovers cameras and a suite of sensors belonging to the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA), a science instrument led by Spains Centro de Astrobiologa in collaboration with the Finnish Meteorological Institute and NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. MEDA includes wind sensors, light sensors that can detect whirlwinds as they scatter sunlight around the rover, and a sky-facing camera for capturing images of dust and clouds.

Jezero Crater may be in one of the most active sources of dust on the planet, said Manuel de la Torre Juarez, MEDAs deputy principal investigator at JPL. Everything new we learn about dust will be helpful for future missions.

Frequent Whirlwinds

The study authors found that at least four whirlwinds pass Perseverance on a typical Martian day and that more than one per hour passes by during a peak hourlong period just after noon.

The rovers cameras also documented three occasions in which wind gusts lifted large dust clouds, something the scientists call gust-lifting events. The biggest of these created a massive cloud covering 1.5 square miles (4 square kilometers). The paper estimated that these wind gusts may collectively lift as much or more dust as the whirlwinds that far outnumber them.

We think these gust-liftings are infrequent but could be responsible for a large fraction of the background dust that hovers all the time in the Martian atmosphere, Newman said.

Why Is Jezero Different?

While wind and dust are prevalent all over Mars, what the researchers are finding seems to set Jezero apart. This greater activity may be linked to the crater being near what Newman describes as a dust storm track that runs north to south across the planet, often lifting dust during the dust storm season.

Newman added that the greater activity in Jezero could be due to factors such as the roughness of its surface, which can make it easier for the wind to lift dust. That could be one explanation why NASAs InSight lander in Elysium Planitia, about 2,145 miles (3,452 kilometers) away from Jezero Crater is still waiting for a whirlwind to clear its dust-laden solar panels, while Perseverance has already measured nearby surface dust removal by several passing whirlwinds.

Perseverance is nuclear-powered, but if we had solar panels instead, we probably wouldnt have to worry about dust buildup, Newman said. Theres generally just more dust lifting in Jezero Crater, though average wind speeds are lower there and peak wind speeds and whirlwind activity are comparable to Elysium Planitia.

In fact, Jezeros dust lifting has been more intense than the team would have wanted: Sand carried in whirlwinds damaged MEDAs two wind sensors. The team suspects the sand grains harmed the thin wiring on the wind sensors, which stick out from Perseverances mast. These sensors are particularly vulnerable because they must remain exposed to the wind in order to measure it correctly. Sand grains blown in the wind, and likely carried in whirlwinds, also damaged one of the Curiosity rovers wind sensors (Curiositys other wind sensor was damaged by debris churned up during its landing in Gale Crater).

With Curiositys damage in mind, the Perseverance team provided an additional protective coating to MEDAs wires. Yet Jezeros weather still got the better of them. De la Torre Juarez said the team is testing software changes that should allow the wind sensors to keep working.

We collected a lot of great science data, de la Torre Juarez said. The wind sensors are seriously impacted, ironically, because we got what we wanted to measure.

More About the Mission

A key objective for Perseverances mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planets geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).

Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASAs Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.

For more about Perseverance:

mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

News Media Contacts

Andrew GoodJet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.818-393-2433andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov

Karen Fox / Alana JohnsonNASA Headquarters, Washington301-286-6284 / 202-358-1501karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov

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NASA's Perseverance Studies the Wild Winds of Jezero Crater NASA Mars Exploration - NASA Mars Exploration

CAPSTONE is an important mission for the next generation of space exploration.

A significant step on this ambitious journey will be a crewed mission to the surface of the moon under the Artemis program. The Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) cubesat will act as a pathfinder for this mission.

Set to launch in 2022, CAPSTONE will orbit the moon assisting the navigation technologies of future missions and verifying the dynamics of a halo-shaped orbit around Earth's natural satellite, thus reducing the risk to future spacecraft.

Ultimately, though the CAPSTONE mission is planned to last just six months, it will assist in the Artemis program, set to land humans on the lunar surface again by the mid-2020s.

Related: How far is the moon from Earth?

CAPSTONE is a cubesat weighing just 55 pounds (25 kilograms) and is about the size of a microwave oven, according to NASA (opens in new tab). The craft is kitted out with solar arrays, a camera, and antennae that facilitate communication and navigation.

The low-cost craft was funded by NASA in 2019, meaning the time between development and deployment has been much shorter than is typically seen in space missions.

The overall management of the system is handled by NASA's Small Spacecraft Technology Program within the agency's Space Technology Mission Directoratebased at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley.

Advanced Space (opens in new tab) of Westminster, Colorado, has been in charge of developing and operating CAPSTONE as part of a $13.7 million agreement. Advanced Space will become the first commercial entity to operate a craft in an Earth-moon three-body orbit, with the company joining NASA and the Chinese Space Agency as the only agencies to have achieved this thus far. Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems built the cubesat in Irvine, California,while Stellar Exploration, Inc. of San Luis Obispo, California, has provided the cubesat's propulsion system.

CAPSTONE's launch is managed by NASA's Launch Services Program at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with Rocket Lab of Long Beach, California providing launch services as part of a contract with a value of $9.95 million.

Advanced Space initially predicted (opens in new tab) that the CAPSTONE cubesat would leave Earth in 2021, but the launch didn't happen with it pushed from October to 2022.

In mid-March, NASA reported (opens in new tab) that the launch of CAPSTONE had been delayed to "no earlier than May 31" adding that the launch period extends to June 22, 2022. The earliest launch date was then pushed back again to no earlier than June 6.

The Cubesat moved from the Terran Orbital Corporation in Irvine, California, to Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 (LC-1) on the Mahia Peninsula of New Zealand on May 9, 2022, in preparation for its June launch.

The launch will be available to watch from home on various platforms including Facebook (opens in new tab), Twitter (opens in new tab), YouTube (opens in new tab), NASA TV (opens in new tab), and the NASA app (opens in new tab). Space.com will cover the launch and provide specific details on how and when you can watch it closer to the time.

Carrying the tiny CAPSTONE craft to space is an Electron rocketthe first rocket orbital launch vehicle designed and manufactured by Rocket Lab. The reusable rocket designed for the launch of multiple tiny satellites at a time will use a brand-new Lunar Photon satellite upper stage to eject CAPSTONE to a highly efficient transfer orbit to the Moon.

Following an estimated three-month-long journey CAPSTONE will arrive at the moon and orbit within 1,000 miles (1600 kilometers) of one lunar pole during its near passage and to within 43,500 miles (70,000 km) from the other pole at its peak, occurring approximately every seven days.

CAPSTONE's primary mission is to test this unique highly elliptical or flattened orbit around the moon. Officially called a near rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) (opens in new tab) this lunar orbit is located at a precise and stable balance point in the gravitational interaction between the Earth and the moon.

A craft in such a highly elliptical NRHO should require less propulsion when flying to and from the Moon's surface than would be required by craft in more circular orbits. This is because, unlike most halo orbits, an NRHO is marginally stable, requiring the use of small amounts of propellants to maintain.

CAPSTONE will explore such an energy-efficient orbit for six months allowing scientists to assess its characteristics and requirements like power and propulsion that are needed to maintain it. That means the test orbit of CAPSTONE should point to the ideal staging area for future missions to the moon. The cubesat has important objectives beyond exploring an NRHO, however.

Another of the key tasks of CAPSTONE will be the testing of spacecraft-to-spacecraft navigation systems. Managing this is a second payload comprised of a flight computer and radio calculating CAPSTONE's position in its orbital path.

The cubesat will use NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) as a reference point, communicating back and forth with its predecessor, which launched in 2009.

This peer-to-peer communication with the LRO will help test CAPSTONE's navigation systemthe Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System (CAPS)which could enable future spacecraft to track their location without the need to communicate with Earth.

The aim of testing both an NRHO and these navigation/communication systems is to establish stability for forthcoming lunar missions such as the lunar Gateway and other, smaller, less costly lunar projects.

The staging mission Gateway will be a critical piece of the Artemis puzzle, an outpost orbiting the moon providing vital support for a long-term human mission and our return to the lunar surface.

Ultimately, this is hoped to lead to longer sustained space missions, establishing outposts on the lunar surface, and finally taking the leap of sending a crewed mission to Mars.

Related: How long does it take to get to Mars?

In short, the continuation of Artemis is next, with missions increasingly in complexity over the coming years. CAPSTONE acts as an important step in the ongoing program which began in 2017 and will ultimately see humanity return to the moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972.

The four main stages of this future moon exploration program are the Orion spacecraft, the aforementioned Gateway station, the Moon Landing Module, and the Space Launch System (SLS).

Related: How NASA's Artemis moon landing with astronauts works

The SLSwhich will be the most powerful rocket ever launched by humanitycurrently waits at the launchpad at Kennedy Space Center to send the Artemis I into space. The aim will be to test both the SLS and the Orion modulewhich will be uncrewed on its first journey.

Following the launchcurrently set for 2022Orion will journey to 62 miles (100 km) above the lunar surface and then will travel around 40,000 miles (65,000 km) beyond the moon, before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean around 20 to 25 days after launch.

Following this, in 2024 the Gateway space station is planned to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy. A vital part of NASA's deep space exploration plans delivering supplies and vehicles to the lunar surface, its orbit around the moon will take advantage of findings delivered by CAPSTONE.

By 2025 or 2026, the Artemis mission is planned to lead to the first woman and person of color setting foot on the lunar surface.

Beyond this, NASA plans to use the moon and Gateway as a leap pad for a crewed mission to Mars with CAPSTONE functioning as an important data-gathering step in that adventure.

Before the SLS the most powerful rocket devised by humanity was the Saturn V. And just like the SLS will do for Artemis, one of the key missions for Saturn V was delivering astronauts to the moon as part of the Apollo missions. Read more about this mighty rocket in our guide. Explore the Electron rocket that will carry the CAPSTONE mission in more detail with the ESA Earth Observation Portal (opens in new tab). Read more about the Gateway project that will follow CAPSTONE, in this NASA overview (opens in new tab) of the mission.

What is CAPSTONE? NASA, [Accessed 05/29/22], [https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/small_spacecraft/capstone (opens in new tab)]

NEXT MISSION: CAPSTONE, RocketLab, [Accessed 05/29/22], [https://www.rocketlabusa.com/missions/completed-missions/capstone/ (opens in new tab)]

Davis. D. C., Zimovan-Spreen. E. M., Power. R. J., Howell. K. C., 'Cubesat Deployment from a Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit,' NASA, [2021], [https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20210024146 (opens in new tab)]

Artemis, NASA, [Accessed 05/29/22], [https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis/ (opens in new tab)]

We Are Going to the Moon, Advanced Space, [Accessed 05/29/22], https://advancedspace.com/missions/capstone/ (opens in new tab)

Howell. E., 'NASA's CAPSTONE cubesat launch to the moon delayed to May 31,' Space.com, [NASA's CAPSTONE cubesat launch to the moon delayed to May 31]

David. L., 'Little CAPSTONE cubesat ready to launch on big moon mission next month,' Space.com, [https://www.space.com/capstone-cubesat-moon-mission-launch-may]

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CAPSTONE: A pathfinding moon cubesat for the Artemis program - Space.com

Humanity has been preoccupied with the night sky and our place in the cosmos since the dawn of our species. The vastness of space transcends the arbitrary borderlines we draw here on Earth, offering a never-ending frontier.

As our capacity to travel across the Solar System continues to improve, policy needs to reflect that lack of boundaries thats why NASA came together with hundreds of space experts from 14 agencies in 2006 to envisage humanitys future presence in space. Ultimately, they wanted to establish a framework for cooperation and development that would put humans back on the Moon.

The end result was a document published 15 years ago in May 2007, that has changed how we think about humankinds presence in space: The Global Exploration Strategy: The Framework for Coordination.

Scott Pace served as the Executive Secretary of the National Space Council and was Associate Administrator at NASA for Program Analysis and Evaluation at the time when The Global Exploration Strategy (GES) was dreamed into existence. He explains to Inverse that the GES is rooted in a problem he came up against himself when he talked with a senior Canadian Space Agency official about the U.S. and Canadas diverging Moon programs during the Bush era. Neither could really discuss missions that might benefit the whole of humanity.

Shortly after Paces encounter, Michael Griffin, then Administrator at NASA, officially organized the GES meetings to coalesce support around the agencys lunar ambitions. At the time, NASA planned to send humans back to the Moon by 2020.

Initially, [the GES] was meant to be very informal and had no authority to do anything, but was simply to exchange ideas and information about where different parties might be going, says Pace.

We made it pretty inclusive, he adds ultimately, more than 1,000 people from 14 different space agencies would work together on the GES. The agencies involved were the European Space Agency, as well as the space agencies of the United States, Australia, Canada, China, Russia, Japan, India, Ukraine, Korea, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom.

Reflecting the international spirit, the documents introduction states:

Space exploration enriches and strengthens humanitys future. Searching for answers to fundamental questions such as: Where did we come from? What is our place in the universe? and What is our destiny? can bring nations together in a common cause, reveal new knowledge, inspire young people and stimulate technical and commercial innovation on Earth. The Global Exploration Strategy is key to delivering these benefits.

The GES is not legally binding, rather, it recommends a framework so that nations can collaborate to strengthen both individual projects and the collective effort to explore space. Paradoxically, it is the non-binding nature of the GES that gives it its power.

Its a way to explore whats possible. It doesnt try to drive or affect geopolitical realities. It just kind of deals with them, Pace says.

NASA plans to build a Lunar Gateway to enable more exploration of the Moons surface.NASA/Alberto Bertolin

The GES document states that it is a new opportunity for collaboration in space specifically, to enable humans to live and work on the Moon before anywhere else in the cosmos. Today, it lives on in NASAs Moon to Mars missions.

It elaborates a vision for globally coordinated space exploration focussed on solar system destinations where humans will someday live and work, the document introduction reads.

The GES document details 5 key reasons to expand humanity into space:

The first big move the GES recommends is to establish Earths natural satellite, the Moon, as a base that serves as a jumping-off point to more easily access and study the rest of the universe. The technology developed to begin exploring and utilizing the Moons resources could then also be harnessed to help send humanity into the outer reaches of space.

The GES also looks toward humans on Mars, stating:

Mars is far from hospitable for humans. The vacuum of space also poses danger to humans; no pressure lowers the boiling point of liquids, if exposed, space would freeze our flesh yet our blood would boil. Radiation also affects human bodies in ways we are only starting to grasp on Earth.

Humankind is simply not equipped to exist in space thats why we need better technology to get us there safely, the GES proposes, and a base where we can safely live and explore the cosmos: The Moon.

NASA is going back to the Moon with the Artemis program, which will enable humans to explore the Moons surface for the first time in decades its aiming to send a crew within the 2020s. Russia and China are also developing a lunar space station with explicit aims to start exploiting the Moons resources.

At the same time, space agencies and private companies like SpaceX have their eyes on Mars. Elon Musks space company is designing Starship specifically to reach the Red Planet as early as 2030, according to the companys Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell.

Mars is already home to a number of robot rovers and landers. In the absence of humans, these automatons are the next best thing. Mars InSight Lander, for example, has enabled scientists to understand the planets interior and geophysical dynamics in a way a satellite never could manage, even discovering Marsquakes.

Despite how well robots work in space, if humans are to eventually exist throughout the Solar System, we will need spacecraft like SpaceXs Starship to do it. The Starship is designed to carry 100 tons of cargo into orbit, and it will function as a reusable spaceship to transport humans and everything they need to survive in space from the Earth to the Moon and, one day, to Mars.

On May 5, 2022, a prototype of the Starship successfully passed a high-altitude flight test its an achievement for SpaceX, but it is also a recent vindication of the GESsm drive to put humans back on the Moon.

An illustration of a suited Artemis astronaut looking out of a Moon lander hatch across the lunar surface.NASA

Today, the worlds space agencies still tend to work together to further human exploration of space. The GES also triggered agencies across the world to join forces to participate in the International Space Exploration Coordination Group. The group, like the GES, sees the Moon as the gateway to further exploration in space.

The last ISECG meeting, held in November December 2021, involved representatives from 24 space agencies coming together to discuss their shared goals to reach the Moon and eventually Mars. The ISECG has 27 members based across the globe committed to sharing their data and their visions with each others nations. In and of itself, that spirit of collaboration is a legacy of the GES.

It hasnt always been rosy: During the Obama administration, the U.S. set out its ambitious plans to send humans to an asteroid and Mars. Pace recalls how, at a 2014 International Space Exploration Forum to discuss space policy, the U.S.s lofty goals seemed to stall the talks. Some space agency representatives at the forum felt they had nothing to contribute to such an ambitious project, he recalls. A few even wondered if the U.S. was sincere about its desire to collaborate on the GES and ISECGs primary objectives to send humans back to the Moon.

But at a later forum in 2018, Pace says the mood difference between it and the 2014 meeting was like day and night.

Everybody was asking: How do we work with you? Do you need something? When can we visit? We have a thought here, we have a thought there, Pace recalls for Inverse. The energy was just remarkably different.

To see that in action, consider how much time and effort NASA is pouring into publicizing the Artemis Moon missions.

This is what became the Artemis program, he says.

Artemis began when we basically rejoined the international consensus that we had originally built, abandoned, and then came back to.

Originally posted here:

15 years ago, 1,000 space experts sketched out humanity's future on the Moon - Inverse

China has proposed a special space exploration that will focus on finding a habitable exoplanet. The mission will involve releasing a spacecraft responsible for scanning the wobbling stars.

The Closeby Habitable Exoplanet Survey or CHES will rely on the micro-arcsecond relative astrometry, which is centered on delivering ultraprecise measurements for the movement of the stars.

Space agencies all over the world are now set to hunt a potential foreign planet that could house the living species. According toSpace.com, China is the latest nation to plan to launch an exoplanet mission anew.

The astronomers will use CHES to detect various exoplanets in space. They would also determine the distance of these planetary bodies from the orbiting stars.

The European Space Agency (ESA) and the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) are using a similar technique that China is doing right now.

To be specific, ESA utilizes the Gaia space telescope, which is capable of building a 3D mapping of the stars existing across the Milky Way.

Meanwhile, NASA relies on the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, better known as the transit method. This is quite different compared because it focuses on detecting the star's luminosity.

The closest method to CHES is the Gaia. China wants to target hunting down exoplanets around the stars. It should be noted that the Earth-like planets could be 33 light-years away from the Earth.

"The hunt for habitable worlds about nearby sun-like stars will be a great breakthrough for humanity, and will also help humans visit those Earth twins and expand our living space in the future," CHES principal investigator Ji Jianghui said in an interview with Space.com.

Related Article:Wenchang Spaceport Gears Up to Send China's Second Space Station Module Into Orbit

At the moment, astronomers have already uncovered more than 5,000 foreign planets in existence. Out of those numbers, only 50 of them are considered to be suited for living.

Space.com added in the same report that CHES would start its mission approximately 930,000 miles away from the planet. This exact point is where the James Webb Space Telescope is currently situated.

According to Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency associate professor Elizabeth Tasker, the measure of the masses of the exoplanets orbiting the F and G stars will be an important addition to their data. This would also pave the way to find the habitable worlds out there.

Speaking of this mission, another China-led proposal appears to be competing with CHES. It should be noted that the Earth 2.0 mission will be implemented to monitor millions of stars. This idea will contribute to the exoplanet-seeking mission.

In another report fromPhys.org,experts are preparing to train the high-precision spectrographs of the James Webb Telescope on its upcoming trip to the rocky exoplanets.

Read Also:NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Set to Release First Science-Quality Images of the Universe on July 12!

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China to Propose Space Mission Focused on Hunting Exoplanets Capable of Hosting Life - Tech Times

In a milestone, the Los Angeles home of the retired space shuttle Endeavour broke ground Wednesday on a permanent museum, which ultimately envisions the spacecraft displayed as if ready for launch.

Of the three surviving space shuttles, Endeavour will be the only one displayed with its nose pointing to the stars, and will be fully attached to the last remaining authentic orange external fuel tank and twin solid rocket boosters.

Once complete, the exhibit will be whats believed to be the tallest vertical authentic spacecraft display in the world. Building construction of the California Science Centers Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center will probably take three years, but it will take longer for the interior to be completed. An opening date has not been announced.

The process will be complex. Roughly halfway through the buildings construction, the shuttle will be moved into the structure, and the rest of the building will then be finished.

Astronauts have cheered the Science Center for designing the exhibit so that people will be able to see the last space shuttle ever built in a way relatively few have seen it before.

Its gonna be pretty impressive, Greg Chamitoff, a former astronaut who flew aboard Endeavour twice, including on its last flight, said in an interview. When you see the shuttle on the launchpad, and youre standing below it its just a spectacular perspective.

A rendering of the exhibit, which is expected to be the tallest vertical authentic spacecraft display in the world.

(ZGF via the California Science Center)

Most people who witnessed shuttle launches did so from a vantage point miles away, California Science Center President Jeffrey Rudolph said, rather than up close.

Thats the view were gonna give people like, theyre right at the base of the launchpad looking up at this shuttle stack. And its almost overwhelming how huge it is, Rudolph said. And that, I think, will inspire so many people. There are a few experiences like that around the world where you see something of that scale, thats real, and thats been so significant to our exploration of the universe.

The overall exhibit will be far more dramatic than the current temporary exhibit, where Endeavour is displayed horizontally, as if it has just landed. Although the reusable shuttle is already 122 feet long (around the same length as a Boeing 737) the external fuel tank is even longer at 153.8 feet long, taller than a 15-story building.

With the addition of the twin solid rocket boosters and the fuel tank, the overall look when added to the shuttle itself will appear more than double that size. And then itll be disappearing from you, up into the size of a building. Its going to be pretty impressive, Chamitoff said.

Chamitoff said he thought the exhibit would be more dramatic than, for example, exhibits showing the Saturn V rocket that launched astronauts on the Apollo program to the moon, which are mostly just fuel tanks, with only a tiny proportion of the spacecraft returning to Earth. There are three remaining authentic Saturn V rockets on display, and all are displayed horizontally.

Whatever capsules are flying today, whether its Russian or SpaceX, you can fit three of them inside the shuttle cargo bay, Chamitoff said. By contrast, with the space shuttle, so much of the vehicle makes it into space, and then back down to the Earth.

It was an amazing thing that we were flying. And its really sad that were not able to keep flying something like that, Chamitoff said.

Part of the reason no other museum has displayed a space shuttle or Saturn V rocket vertically is the enormous cost and technical difficulty in doing so.

To house Endeavour as if its preparing for launch, the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center will rise 20 stories. Designing the building was a challenge: A typical building of that size has floors, walls and columns. But displaying an entire space shuttle requires a structure with an open interior, Rudolph said.

We didnt think about doing it the easiest way to display this, Rudolph said. We thought about what would be the best way to display it, would have the most impact on everybody who sees it, but particularly young people, and create that spark that makes them dream and think that someday they want to be on a spacecraft like this, or participate in building one.

To house Endeavour as if its preparing for launch, the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center will rise 20 stories.

(ZGF via the California Science Center)

Once a lower portion of the building is completed which will take about a year and a half the shuttle will be installed in a process that will probably take three to four months, Rudolph said. The assembly will begin with the solid rocket boosters, then the external fuel tank, then the shuttle, completing whats known as a full space shuttle stack.

Itll be the first time a shuttle designed for space has been assembled vertically outside of Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Rudolph said. (The test orbiter Enterprise, which never flew in space, was assembled once in a vertical full stack at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and one other time at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County.)

Once the building housing Endeavour is completed, additional aircraft and spacecraft will be moved in, and museum officials are still working out how long that will take. There will be three multilevel galleries in the aerospace wing one each for air, space and the shuttle thatll cover four floors.

Among the new exhibits will be the forward 50 feet of a Boeing 747 which includes the distinctive hump that is being given to the Science Center from Korean Air.

The shuttle project, estimated to cost $400 million, will reshape the skyline of the community just south of downtown Los Angeles thats home to the California Science Center, a state-run museum with free admission whose roots stem from 110 years ago, as a site exhibiting agricultural and industrial projects. The site became the California Museum of Science and Industry in 1951, and reopened as the California Science Center in 1998.

A platform will offer an elevated, close-up look at Endeavour, its boosters and its fuel tank.

(ZGF via the California Science Center)

Thus far, donors have committed $280 million to build and sustain the new museum wing; the remaining $120 million will be raised over the next several years, the museum said.

The new aerospace museum wing is named for Samuel Oschin, the late Los Angeles businessman and philanthropist, whose name is also on the Griffith Observatory planetarium and the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center cancer institute. Financial contributions that came from the Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Oschin Family Foundation have been transformational to getting the new museum built, museum officials said.

The wife of Samuel Oschin, Lynda, had the honor of officially commencing the ceremonial groundbreaking Wednesday, lifting a traffic sign with the word Go! and then saying: Lets start drilling. Two former astronauts joined Chamitoff for the ceremony: Barbara Morgan, who became the first teacher in space, flying aboard Endeavour in 2007; and Garrett Reisman, who has flown on all three surviving shuttles.

Also at Wednesdays groundbreaking was fifth-grader Ken Sanchez, 11, one of 20 students from the neighboring Dr. Theodore T. Alexander Jr. Science Center School who provided scientific and space-based presentations. He said he has dreamed of becoming an astronaut his whole life, and eagerly showed Morgan how, wearing space gloves, he could handle liquid nitrogen that was minus-321 degrees.

He dunked usually bouncy tennis balls into the cryogenic fluid, and then pulled them out, each appearing like an orb as sturdy as a brick. Sometimes youre in class and talking about things in science that seem so far away, Sanchez said. Then you have an astronaut and youre using space gloves and its all cool.

Morgan, 70, a former elementary school teacher from Fresno, was just as impressed with Sanchez.

It was so much fun to see them take ownership of their learning and their enthusiasm for science, Morgan said. The old-timers like me are on the way out, but our hope is to inspire the next generation.

Reisman said that growing up, he didnt know what he wanted to be, but that changed with a visit to the Smithsonians National Air and Space Museum.

A visit to a place like this can change minds, as it did for me, Reisman said.

Endeavour has been in a temporary display building at the California Science Center for the last decade. In 2012, Endeavour made its final cross-country journey, captivating millions of Californians as it flew atop a Boeing 747, flying past the Golden Gate Bridge and Hollywood sign, before eventually undergoing a three-day, 12-mile trek over the 405 Freeway and across the streets of Los Angeles and Inglewood to its new home.

The 15-story orange external fuel tank arrived in 2016, on a journey by sea through the Panama Canal and into Marina del Rey, before also lumbering through the streets to the Science Center. The solid rocket boosters have not yet arrived at the Science Center, and are being stored at another location.

The space shuttles arrival in California was a homecoming for Endeavour, which rolled off Rockwell Internationals production line in Palmdale in 1991, replacing Challenger, which exploded after launch in 1986, killing the seven aboard. Southern California played a crucial role in the shuttles development, which pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the economy and became a source of pride for the regions aerospace industry.

The exhibit will be the first time a shuttle designed for flight in space has been displayed vertically outside Kennedy Space Center in Florida. An opening date has not been set.

(ZGF via California Science Center)

The idea of bringing a space shuttle to the Science Center has been on the drawing board for a generation. Ken Phillips, the aerospace curator of the California Science Center, in 1991 made a proposal to acquire a space shuttle at some point when theyd be retired, and in 1992, Rudolph had blueprints showing a retired orbiter perched upright.

The space shuttle program was launched following the Apollo-era mission to land on the moon. In developing a reusable spacecraft with a huge cargo bay, the space shuttles were instrumental in constructing the International Space Station, which began a decades-long stretch of human presence in space so far uninterrupted since its first long-term residents arrived in 2000.

Hopefully, Chamitoff said, from that point on, humans will always be living in space, and not only be limited to planet Earth.

The shuttle program was set for retirement after another shuttle, Columbia, disintegrated on reentry in 2003, and NASA reprioritized missions to complete construction of the International Space Station. Endeavours final landing from space was exactly 11 years ago Wednesday, commanded by astronaut Mark Kelly, now a U.S. senator from Arizona; only one more shuttle flight flew afterward, Atlantis, which concluded the 30-year space shuttle mission.

NASA has since developed the Artemis program to return astronauts to the moon later this decade, which would be a stepping-stone to missions farther away, including Mars. Goals would be to build a spaceship in lunar orbit called Gateway, where astronauts would be able to conduct research and take trips to the moons surface; and to build Artemis Base Camp on the moons surface for astronauts to live and work.

Whats coming is just incredible, Chamitoff said. Its very exciting going back to the moon, building permanent facilities and starting to learn what its like to live and thrive on another planetary body.

Chamitoff said he hoped the Endeavour exhibit will be inspirational to schoolchildren. The Canada-born astronaut spent a number of years of his youth in California, graduating from a high school in San Jose in 1980 and earning an electrical engineering degree at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and an aeronautical engineering degree at Caltech, before earning a doctorate in aeronautics and astronautics at MIT.

So whats the advice hed give to schoolchildren wanting to become an astronaut someday?

Follow your passions... The thing that is easiest to do is to work hard on the things that you love, Chamitoff said. Theres so many different fields that contribute to space exploration, whether its engineering or any kind of science; it could be medicine.

The main thing is to just, you know, when you decide to do something, do it to the best of your ability. Thats whats gonna get you there, Chamitoff said.

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Space shuttle Endeavour will get its own museum in L.A. - Los Angeles Times