Category Archives: Space Exploration

Space shuttle Atlantis is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 23 crew member on the International Space Station soon after the shuttle and station began their post-undocking relative separation in 2010. Three NASA astronauts including two of the last people to ever fly on a space shuttle are headed to the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame. (NASA)

(Tribune News Service) Three NASA astronauts including two of the last people to ever fly on a space shuttle are headed to the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame.

The choices announced this week by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation include astronauts David Leestma, Sandy Magnus and Navy veteran Chris Ferguson, set to be inducted June 11 to the Hall of Fame as its 2022 class of honorees. The three will join a small group of 101 other individuals who also received the distinguished honor. Leestma, Magnus and Ferguson were selected by the foundation for their demonstration of outstanding accomplishments in furthering NASAs mission of exploration and discovery, according to a press release from the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, which houses the hall of fame.

The ceremony will take place in the massive exhibit that displays Space Shuttle Atlantis, which flew on STS-135, NASAs final space shuttle mission back in 2011. The Atlantis backdrop is a fitting homecoming for Magnus and Ferguson, who were both part of the 2011 Atlantis crew for its final mission. The shuttle was later decommissioned and became an exhibit in 2013 at the Visitor Complex.

NASA is inviting space enthusiasts and community leaders to the annual ceremony. The 30-year tradition was skipped in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. The 2020 veteran astronauts Pamela Melroy, Scott Kelly and Michael Lopez-Alegria were officially inducted at a rescheduled ceremony last November.

As we embark on a new era of space travel and interplanetary exploration, we are pleased to resume this annual program as scheduled and welcome these accomplished individuals into the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame, said Curt Brown, chairman of the ASF, which oversees the hall of fame selection process.

To qualify for the hall of fame, an astronaut must have made their first flight at least 17 years prior to the induction year and they must be a NASA-trained commander, pilot or mission specialist who has orbited Earth at least once. U.S. citizenship is also necessary.

All three have demonstrated the characteristics that define a Hall of Famer: heroism, commitment and bravery, Brown said.

Ferguson is a retired U.S. Navy captain and former NASA astronaut logging more than 40 days in space and 5,700 hours in high-performance aircraft. Ferguson worked as space shuttle pilot and commander of the 2011 Atlantis mission. He previously served as deputy chief of the astronaut office and currently works as a flight crew representative for Boeings Commercial Crew Program.

Leestma became an astronaut in 1980 and flew three space shuttle missions. Later, he became the director of flight crew operations where he oversaw 41 space shuttle flights and seven shuttle-Mir flights. Leestma wore many executive hats with NASA and twice received the Presidential Rank of Meritorious Executive.

Joining the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1996, Magnus flew in space on four shuttle missions riding in Atlantis twice, first in 2002, as well shuttles Endeavour and Discovery. She was one of the four astronauts who flew on NASAs final shuttle flight in 2011. She also flew to the International Space Station in 2008 spending nearly five months onboard as the ISS flight engineer and science officer. Magnus career also includes international work at the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency on facility-type payloads for the ISS.

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Crewmates of last shuttle mission, including Navy veteran, among 3 astronauts chosen for hall of fame - Stars and Stripes

Space to Grow is back for a second season with hosts Chris Blackerby and Charity Weeden fromAstroscale. Its where economics, technology and sustainability in space intersect. In the opening episode, Blackerby and Weeden take a look back and forward regarding the space economy.

Were going to focus a lot on partnerships as a dedicated theme of conversations, as they are driving the space economy, Blackerby said.

Since space exploration and sustainability are such complex initiatives, partnerships are critical.

Blackerby and Weeden shared some big moments in space from the last year. Even with COVID, it was an incredible year for space, Blackerby noted.

Weedens top moment was humanity in space. Private citizens went into space. Thats a first, and everyone can relate to that.

While that was a pivotal moment, others demonstrated risks and challenges, spawning from geopolitical impacts on Earth. One of those is the Russian ASAT (anti-satellite weapon) tests.

Turning back to good news that demonstrates cooperation and collaboration, theJames Webb Space Telescope launched through a partnership between the U.S. and Europe. Weeden relayed that the investment in the space economy isnt slowing in other good news. Its actually growing.

The hosts then provided a preview of whats to come this season. Theyll welcome a diverse group of guests from around the world. Topics will range from business to policy to technology.

Weeden also announced a new segment Space to Grow After Hours. Well be debating topics with the pros and cons in this extra content, she described.

Where Will the Money Come from in Space Sustainability?

The Evolving Diplomatic Side of Space Sustainability

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This Season's Mission Will Be Making Space Relatable - MarketScale

Hungary greatly values the stabilising role the United Arab Emirates plays in the Middle East and appreciates its signing of peace treaties with Israel, Foreign Minister Pter Szijjrt said on Dubai on Wednesday.

Hungary supports the nomination of the officials who prepared the so-called Abraham Accords for the Nobel Peace Prize, the foreign ministry cited Szijjrt as saying. The minister also expressed hope that the spirit of the normalisation deals between Israel and the UAE would live on and lead to more similar treaties.

Speaking at a press conference after a meeting of the Hungary-UAE economic mixed committee,

Szijjrt praised the Emirates for the help it provided to Hungary by sharing its experiences and findings about the use of Chinas Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine.

The two countries will continue their cooperation in the area of health care, he said, adding that their health authorities have begun sharing information with one another about the vaccination of children.

Turning to economic ties, Szijjrt said the Gulf countries, and specifically the UAE, presented a wealth of opportunities for Hungarian technology-oriented businesses, naming the area of water management as an example. Bilateral trade turnover reached 400 million US dollars last year, an 11 percent increase from the previous year, while Hungarian exports were up 19 percent, he said, adding that both indicators were at an eight-year high.

Meanwhile,

Hungarys Eximbank has opened an 800 million dollar credit line to help finance bilateral business cooperation,

Szijjrt said. Hungarian companies were contracted by several cities in the UAE to modernise the public lighting system, he said, adding that Hungarian oil and gas company MOL was in talks with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company on energy cooperation.

Hungary and the UAE also signed a

cooperation agreement on space exploration and space activities,

as well as on water management and higher education. Under the agreement, Hungary will offer university scholarships to 100 students from the UAE as part of the Stipendium Hungaricum programme each year, Szijjrt said.

Abdulla Bin Touq Al Marri, minister of economy of the UAE, hailed the partnership between the two countries, noting its role in diversifying the UAEs economy.

Source: MTI

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Hungary to cooperate with the United Arab Emirates in space exploration! - dailynewshungary.com

HELSINKI A spacecraft involved in Chinas 2020 Change-5 lunar sample-return mission is now in a unique orbit around the Moon, more than a year after completing its primary mission.

The service module, which played a large part in delivering 1.731 kilograms of fresh lunar samples to Earth in December 2020, is now in a distant retrograde orbit (DRO) of the moon, according to amateur satellite trackers.

China has not published an update on Change-5s activities since May 2021, when the China Lunar Exploration Program released images the spacecraft had taken from deep space.

However amateur satellite tracker Scott Tilley and others, including Jean-Luc Milette and Edgar Kaiser, have been following Change-5s travels through space and provide evidence for the new lunar orbit following months of observations.

A distant retrograde orbit sees a spacecraft interact with two gravitationally stable areas in front of and behind the moon with respect to the Earth. The spacecrafts distance from the moon means it orbits only once every couple of weeks.

Such an orbit has not been used before but is planned to be utilized by NASAs upcoming Artemis 1 mission later this year. The agencys canceled Asteroid Redirect Mission also considered using a DRO.

Nailing down the orbit of Change-5 was a challenge, Tilley told SpaceNews in an email, citing the limited size of antennae available to amateur trackers and equipment calibration. The primary issue for amateurs was obtaining high accuracy positional locations of the spacecraft in the sky, says Tilley.

However public collaboration between trackers across the world helped constrain the apparent path of the spacecraft, says Tilley, who has tracked Change-5 from soon after its launch in November 2020 and helped provide up-to-date information, as China did not publicly reveal the entire mission timeline and major milestones in advance.

Thats why I found this latest part of tracking Change-5 the most satisfying. It boiled down to a purely amateur effort.

It is unclear what China is planning with the DRO test, but Change lunar missions have earlier been sent on extended missions to add value or even as important tests for later missions.

Change-2 conducted a flyby of the near-Earth asteroid Toutatis in 2012 after completing its mapping of the moon. The service module for the 2014 Change-5 T1 mission, a test run for a sample-return, was used to test out orbiting at Earth-moon Lagrange point 1.

This gave the first hint that China was considering a then-unannounced lunar far side landing mission with Change-4. Incidentally, the upper stage of the Long March 3C used to launch the mission is set to impact the moon in March.

However, spacecraft activity tracker Jonathan McDowell, also an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center, told SpaceNews that he believes China is probably using the Change-5 spacecraft gaining experience with astrodynamics.

They are using it as a toy to play around with. It is clearly useful as a stable lunar orbit for future missions, I just dont think its a specific precursor.

China plans to launch a near-Earth asteroid sample-return mission around 2024, but while the mission will build on experience and engineering from Change-5, the mission profile does not suggest use of a lunar DRO.

Change-5 was primarily a complex, three-week-long mission to collect fresh lunar samples from the near side of the moon. Launching from Wenchang on a Long March 5 rocket in November 2020, the mission involved the orbiter, a lander, an ascent vehicle and a return capsule.

The lander perished after sunset over its landing site due to the intense cold of the lunar night, while the ascent vehicle was commanded to impact the moon after carrying the samples into orbit, docking with the orbiter, and transferring the lunar payload to a return capsule. The return capsule was recovered in Siziwang Banner in Inner Mongolia after reentry into Earths atmosphere.

Portions of the samples are now being studied by Chinese and international scientists. Research has included dating the rock samples, analyzing the composition and volatile content, oxygen extraction, refining the ages of planetary bodies and more.

However, after releasing the capsule containing samples collected from Oceanus Procellarum, the orbiter itself continued its journey away from Earth, heading for the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 1, roughly 1.5 million kilometers away. The spacecraft is using extra fuel thanks to the precise initial orbital injection by the Long March 5.

The spacecraft entered orbit around this gravitational stable point in March 2021. Once there, it conducted space environment tests and solar and Earth observations under the control of the Beijing Aerospace Control Center (BACC).

Jing Peng, deputy chief designer of the Change-5 spacecraft system at the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), said during the Global Space Exploration (GLEX) conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, in June 2021, that a visit to a planetary body such as Venus may not be possible due to a lack of propellant.

I dont think there will be many opportunities for the orbiter to perform more complex orbit maneuvers with other bodies, he said. I think it will stay in Lagrange point 1 or the Earth-moon system,Peng said.

The orbiter returned to the Earth-moon system in September 2021, again tracked by enthusiasts.

China is planning to launch another moon sample-return, Change-6, around 2024, following the launch of the multi-spacecraft Change-7 orbiter, lander, relay satellite and rover mission.

The country is also planning an International Lunar Research Station on the moons surface in collaboration with Russia.

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A Chinese spacecraft is testing out a new orbit around the moon - SpaceNews

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--In an annual State of Space 2022 commentary and video, Thomas Zelibor, CEO of Space Foundation, a nonprofit advocate organization founded in 1983 for the global space ecosystem, speaks to business and government leaders about the transformation of the space industry, how space is already a critical infrastructure driving innovation for life here on Earth, and why it is so important that we prioritize workforce and education initiatives, while establishing norms of behavior to work together peacefully in space for the future of mankind.

State of Space: Then and Now

When we started the State of Space program in 2019, it was a different environment from what we are experiencing today. In fact, looking back, it would be safe to say that we were at the dawn of a new era for the global space community.

Project Artemis and our efforts to return to the Moon were in their infancy; the Hubble Space Telescope continued to reveal mysteries in our surrounding universe; commercial resupply missions to the International Space Station were occurring with regularity; and commercial space industry operations were starting to garner more interest by media, investors and the public, globally.

Three years later, the first space launch system (SLS) is stacked on the pad to launch this year for our first return to the Moon in generations; the James Webb Space Telescope is now unfolding at L2 to reveal more mysteries about our universe; commercial companies are now carrying astronauts and private citizens into space; and a $447 billion global space economy continues to grow in size, investment and employment. All the while, the world dealt with an unprecedented global pandemic that hampered economic growth and expansion.

State of Space 2022: The Era of Access and Opportunity

With 90 countries now operating in space, dozens of companies with orbital access capabilities, and growing global demands for talent to keep all these efforts going, it is easy to understand why Space Foundation calls this the era of access and opportunity.

Want further proof? Look at any news site, newspaper, or media outlet and youll find more expansive coverage of space today than you did during the Apollo era with far more diverse players than singular superpowers competing for supremacy.

Look at the continued and uninterrupted patterns of growth in government spending and private investment that are becoming more expansive than at any other time in our history.

Look at the demands by nation states as well as citizens for increasing access, understanding and imagery that space provides to monitor the safety, health and well-being of our planet as well as the natural disaster and national security threats that are ever present.

These are the facts of a vibrant and diverse ecosystem, and if done right, they will allow everyone to find their place in this dynamic environment.

State of Space 2022: What Would Life Be Like Without Space?

While the public will always envision rockets and astronauts when they think of space, the truth is that space is a critical infrastructure driving innovation for life here on Earth. In fact, there are more space activities happening here on Earth than in orbit around our planet.

But with Space, all these things and much more are possible. For as different as all of us are, we are all bound by common hopes and aspirations for a future where peace and prosperity are the values that bring us all together.

Todays era of access and opportunity is not bound by traditional approaches of solitary nations or enterprises going it alone to fulfill bold missions. But rather, we are establishing new relationships with greater possibilities for success as partners and investors. That is not just among countries, but also companies, communities and cultures.

Unfortunately, there are some leaders that see what we do by investing precious resources and energies in space activities as taking away from addressing the challenges that every country and community face here on Earth.

At Space Foundation, we would argue that the investment of resources and energies in these pursuits are the catalysts that will drive and create solutions we all want and need for our planet, our countries and our communities.

It should also not be a question of one path versus another. Rather, it is a question of how we work together to create understanding, build relationships, and address challenges that are far more common to one another than we may have previously realized.

State of Space 2022: A Global Showcase of Diversity of Thought, Approaches and Leadership

Much like we do at every Space Symposium, Space Foundation is honored to host an array of leaders from the international, national security, investment, insurance and private sectors to let you hear firsthand from them what is happening in their immediate universe.

The views they present are their own, but they speak to multiple perspectives that we need to be aware of as the global space ecosystem expands.

For Space Foundation, we see three key facets that deserve our utmost attention. They include:

Defining Space as a Critical Infrastructure

There is not a continent, country, company or community that is untouched by what we do with space either in orbit or back here on Earth. That dependence and the interdependence of every other critical infrastructure is linked to space. A day without space access and space-to-Earth technologies would be catastrophic to the worlds security, economies and ways of life.

Despite these operational realities, space is not officially classified as a critical infrastructure. Whether the reasons are bureaucratic or political, we are well past the time for governments here and around the world to embrace the facts and classify space for what it is a critical infrastructure where dependence grows greater every day. Global economies like the space economy, already valued at more than $447 billion and forecast to surpass a trillion-plus before the end of the decade, are not possible without becoming an infrastructure themselves. That has been proven time and again.

Space Force is in operation, a dedicated Space ISAC is in place, and more governments, countries and companies with direct space operations requires the official declaration to be made space is the critical infrastructure that will redefine our lives in the 21st century. Lets call it and classify it as such.

Prioritizing Workforce and Education Initiatives

While we may seek to classify specific assets and networks as infrastructures, it would be shortsighted to ignore the driving forces and energies that make infrastructures operate. It all starts with people. Without the necessary talent and the diversity of talent, no one is going anywhere in space, with space, or bringing space innovations to benefit life on Earth.

Engaging new workers, at all levels, in multiple skills and trades, will be the most challenging and competitive environment the global space community will encounter for the foreseeable future.

The space community has never been short in its ability to inspire generations of all ages by the work that it does. This year promises to be another with significant moments to come, but growing global demands for new networks, architectures, launch and recovery capabilities, environmental monitoring, and more are all at risk with a limited pipeline of talent to make those aspirations a reality.

Solutions to these challenges rest as much in boardrooms and at kitchen tables as they do in classrooms. Teachers cannot do this alone. It requires a cultural shift for lifelong learning that crosses boundaries of old if we are going to empower students, engage aspiring entrepreneurs, and foster cross-generational innovators.

Every country, company and community wants to be the home port of this talent. For those not willing to make the effort to develop and retain this talent and empower it to reach its fullest potential, the talent will go elsewhere. We live in a mobile world, and the pandemic has only accelerated talent transformation. The challenge before the space community is, What are we going to do to assure the missions we desire are possible?

There are already innovative shifts in curricula development, professional training, apprenticeships and more. But more shifts are necessary, especially shifts that ensure that any person, regardless of where they come from or whomever they may be, can find their place with space. There is space for everyone.

Establishing Norms of Behavior

In the sixty-plus years of the worlds space adventure, weve taken several momentous steps that have changed history. From Alexei Leonovs first step into the vacuum of space to Neil Armstrongs first boot print on the Moon, weve built on those transformative individual achievements.

For as expansive as space may be, all of us are operating in a closer and more condensed neighborhood than ever before. A look at a map of low-Earth orbits satellites, spacecraft and other in-orbit materials illustrates the challenge we are seeing unfold before us.

In the past year, space stations operated by the ISS partners, as well as the Chinese, have had to make orbital adjustments to safeguard their crews and structures from harm. Additionally, here on Earth, deorbiting debris from launch vehicles has posed risks to life.

For as meticulous as space faring peoples may be in putting a payload and its mission into orbit, we need to be just as meticulous in how and where we operate those payloads and missions to safeguard other operations and people that are in-orbit as well as on Earth.

Carelessness has consequences.

Comprehensive mission stewardship and establishing norms of behavior have always been important but they become even more important when physical and operational competition in the orbiting neighborhood begins to accelerate.

The forecasted launch manifest for 2022 tells us we are in for another record-breaking year. That is positive for a host of reasons, but smart, sustainable and responsible growth and conduct must be part of the equation.

While governments have a role to play here, it is industry that can be the solution drivers for some of these most challenging issues. This is why the private sector needs to have a greater voice in establishing the norms of behavior going forward.

State of Space 2022: History Worth Making

Like a lot of people in the space community, I am genuinely excited by what is happening. We have more countries, companies and missions than ever before. That more factor is the promise of 2022. We will have more of everything, but as a student of history, there is a lot to learn from eras of prosperity, as access and opportunity expand.

We simply have more to do.

While much can be drawn from history and lessons learned from the recent decades of space exploration, it is the next series of chapters that we are writing that will define our future and what others say about us in the future.

What do you want that history to say about us? Think about that for a moment. While history can certainly shape us, it does not have to define us either. That decision is up to us as individuals as well as prospective partners, but it remains our decision.

My challenge to you as prospective history-makers is to pursue our collective goals as teams, rather than as individuals. The rewards we generate will make us all broader and better, and like the first steps of Leonov and Armstrong, they will stand the test of time.

That is foundation building in its greatest form, and it will make all the difference in the world today, tomorrow and for years to come.

At Space Foundation, we look forward to working with you in those pursuits, because the innovations we advocate for together will be the benefits the world needs here on Earth and beyond.

That is history worth making.

See the complete State of Space 2022 keynote by Tom Zelibor at https://youtu.be/xJc3HWrScIY.

To replay the State of Space 2022 event, please register for access at http://www.spacesymposium365.org/agenda/state-of-space-2022/.

About Tom Zelibor

Tom Zelibor, Rear Admiral, USN (ret.), is the CEO for Space Foundation, a nonprofit advocate organization founded in 1983 for the global space ecosystem. Headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Zelibor manages a national staff with a global impact across the business, government, education and local communities. Before joining Space Foundation in April 2017, Zelibor served as chairman and chief executive officer for Lightwave Logic Inc., among other executive roles in commercial enterprises. Prior to his leadership tenure in the private sector, Zelibor had a distinguished 30-year career in the United States Navy.

About Space Foundation

Space Foundation is a nonprofit advocate organization founded in 1983, offering a gateway to information, education and collaboration for space exploration and space-to-Earth industries that define the global space ecosystem. Driven by a partnership model, Space Foundation operates three divisions that unite the entire spectrum of stakeholders business, government, education and local communities through support from corporate membership, sponsorship, fundraising and grants. Symposium 365 is the premier source for media and events, including Space Symposium and The Space Report; Center for Innovation and Education is a lifelong learning provider; and Global Alliance facilitates collaboration around the world. Visit Space Foundation at http://www.SpaceFoundation.org, and follow on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

All brand names and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Tags: Space Foundation, State of Space, Thomas Zelibor, space industry event, space technology, space innovation, space ecosystem, space exploration, space-to-Earth industries

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State of Space 2022 Offers Critical Lessons for Business and Government - Business Wire

BEVERLY A college student from Beverly has landed a fellowship to learn about the aerospace industry.

Amanda Desmond, a junior at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, has been named one of 51 Brooke Owens Fellows for 2022. She is the first student from the University of Massachusetts system to be selected for the program.

The fellowship is named after aerospace industry pioneer and pilot Brooke Owens, who died from cancer in 2016 at age 35. It provides internships in the field for exceptional undergraduate women and other gender minorities, according to UMass Amherst.

Its a really exciting opportunity, Desmond said. Theres a lot of mentorship involved and a really incredible network that theyve built.

Desmond, 20, will serve her 12-week internship this summer in Denver at Voyager Space, a company that describes itself as a global leader in space exploration. The company is part of the New Space industry of private space companies and startups. The industry is worth about $350 billion worldwide, according to Morgan Stanley.

Desmond said she was always interested in learning about space from reading books and watching movies, and credited her father, Mark Desmond, with encouraging her to think about the big picture.

I started reaching out to people who had built careers in the space industry to see what it was like and get their ideas and opinions, she said. I found out that people in the space industry are really happy to help. It made me think it was a possibility for me too.

Desmond said she found out there is a need in the industry not just for scientists and engineers but for people with a business background. That fits well with her double major of economics and space science.

Its an up-and-coming industry and I want to find out where I would play a role, even if its not the traditional engineering role, she said.

During her internship, Desmond will be working directly with Voyager Spaces CEO Dylan Taylor, who she said plays an influential role in the space industry.

Im excited to learn with him, she said.

Staff Writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2535, by email at pleighton@salemnews.com, or on Twitter at @heardinbeverly.

We are making critical coverage of the coronavirus available for free. Please consider subscribing so we can continue to bring you the latest news and information on this developing story.

Staff Writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2535, by email at pleighton@salemnews.com, or on Twitter at @heardinbeverly.

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Beverly student wins fellowship in aerospace industry | News | salemnews.com - The Salem News

DateEventVenueTypeThursday,Feb. 17, 20227 p.m. PSTvon Krmn Lecture:One Year on Mars

Speakers:- Jennifer Trosper, Project Manager- Katie Stack Morgan, Deputy Project Scientist

Speaker:Emily Cardarelli, Scientist, SHERLOC

Speaker:Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity Team Lead

1 p.m. PST / 4 p.m. EST

Persys First Year on Mars with NASAs Mars Mission Team

Speaker:Sunanda Sharma, Scientist, SHERLOC

Online Talk and at Exploratorium,San Francisco

Virtual + In-Person

Speaker:Melissa Rice, Co-Investigator, Mastcam-Z

and

Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum,New York City

Speaker:Alyssa Deardorff, Systems Engineer

and

Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum,New York City

Speakers:- Nagin Cox, Tactical Mission Lead- Adrian Brown, Deputy Program Scientist

1 p.m. talk Livestream from Intrepid

Speaker:Sunanda Sharma, Scientist, SHERLOC

Speaker:Melissa Rice, Co-Investigator, Mastcam-Z

Speakers: - Elio Morillo, Mechanisms Lead- Mitch Schulte, Program Scientist

1 p.m. talk Livestream from Intrepid

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One Year on Mars: Celebrate with the Perseverance Team NASA's Mars Exploration Program - NASA Mars Exploration

NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva/Spaceengine

Physicists have discovered a tiny asteroid, about one kilometer wide, that is locked into the same orbit as Earthonly the second such cosmic body of its type that has been identified to date. And now, experts wonder if that asteroid could help us with future space travel.

Known as "2020 XL5," the asteroid will be trapped in Earth's orbit for at least 4,000 years according to simulations detailed in a new paper published earlier this month in Nature Communications. After that, it will escape from that orbit and fly off into our solar system. (It's considered a Trojan asteroid of Earth, following the naming convention for Jupiter's Trojan asteroids.)

In the meantime, 2020 XL5 is held in place due to a far-out concept in orbital mechanics, or the application of the laws of physics to describe the motion of spacecraft. It's called a "Lagrange point," and it's a gravitationally balanced position in space. Earth's new Trojan asteroid orbits Lagrange point 4 (L4) in an elliptical orbit that flings it nearer to the sun than Venus and about as far away as Mars.

Toni Santana-Ros, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Alicante in the coastal Valencia region of Spain, led the new research on 2020 XL5. His team first spotted the asteroid in December 2020 using the Pan-STARRS observatory, a 1.8-meter telescope located at the summit of Haleakal in Maui, Hawaii. The team wasn't entirely sure that they'd located a new Earth Trojan asteroid, so they followed up by taking images with the Southern Astrophysical Research telescope in Chile.

Why was it so difficult to confirm the existence of this Trojan? It comes down to the "unfavorable viewing geometry of an object orbiting Earth-Sun's L4 or L5 points as seen from our planet," the authors note in the paper. "In short, these objects are often observable very close to the sun (i.e., at low Solar elongations) and under large phase angles (the sun-object-observer angle), meaning that a significant fraction of the object is shadowed as seen from Earth, which in turn implies the object being faint."

NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva

Leonhard Euler, an 18th-century math and physics luminary, first observed these points. (Euler is perhaps best known for his popularizing the use of pi, as well as for his definition of the mathematical value "e," which is the basis for natural logarithms.) Euler discovered the first three known Lagrange points in the Earth-Sun system; these points of gravitational equilibrium between Earth and the sun are called L1 (Lagrange point 1), L2 (Lagrange point 2), and L3 (Lagrange point 3). All three fall along the same imaginary line that passes through both Earth and sun; two are on either side of Earth, and one is on the far opposite side of Earth's orbit around the sun.

Euler's studentJoseph-Louis Lagrange, the namesake of Lagrange pointsdiscovered the fourth and fifth such points, L4 and L5. These points fall a "distance" of two months away from Earth (both in front of and behind it), along its orbital path around the sun.

That brings us back to Lagrange points, which represent a special case of the "three-body problem," an unsolved issue for astronomers who want to track the collision course of three stars hurtling toward one another through space. The reason we can solve for Lagrange points is that the third bodyhere, 2020 XL5is tiny compared to Earth and the sun. It's like solving a system of equations by zeroing out one of the variables.

If massive gravity is one of the reasons that these Lagrange points are so stable, then it makes sense why Jupiter, the most massive (and nearly starlike) planet in our solar system, is absolutely loaded with objects in its Lagrange points. Between its L4 and L5 positions, there are an estimated 10,000 asteroids. Earth has just two known Trojan asteroids to date: 2020 XL5 and another called 2010 TK. But Jupiter's abundance of L4 and L5 objects may help scientists find more around Earth.

NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva

Lagrange points are mathematically cool and they represent the accumulated centuries' worth of astronomy work that has helped to create the scientific climate in which scientists discover new objects today. And Lagrange points have practical uses, too. That's because they form naturally stable little pockets where human-made objects, like satellites, can safely stay in place without using very much energy. The James Webb Space Telescope, for instance, is parked in orbit around Lagrange point 2 (L2), a gravitationally semi-stable location in space aligned with Earth and the sun.

But could we use Lagrange points in other ways? Santana-Ros notes that 2020 XL has an orbit that bobs above and below Earth's orbital plane. This means that to maneuver a spacecraft into a rendezvous (to orbit or land on it) would require a considerable velocity change; that would probably require too much fuel to be practical. The same applies to 2010 TK.

However, the new study points out that if other Earth Trojans are found in orbits that are less tilted, these might make handy bases as staging posts for exploration of the Solar System. They'd be much easier to take off from than from Earth or the moon because their gravity is so slight. They could even hold a wealth of resources that we could mine.

Perhaps most interestingly, objects like the 2020 XL Trojan asteroid could help humans edge further and further into outer space. We can easily predict where these objects will be, and we can land on and take off from them with almost no interference from gravity. This could mean turning flights to Mars into ones with a brief layover, helping to close the technological gap between the enormous power needed to leave Earth's gravity and the much steadier "pulse engine" type power needed to travel to Mars.

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A Newly Discovered Asteroid Shares Earth's Orbit and Could Be Key to Space Travel - Popular Mechanics

For more than two decades the International Space Station (ISS) has been the mainstay of human presence and research in space. More than 100 metres long, its the largest object ever placed in space, and its construction brought together the space agencies from the United States, Europe, Russia, Japan and Canada.

The ISS has hosted research that could not have been done anywhere else, in the fields of microgravity, space biology, human physiology and fundamental physics. It also provides a base for deep space exploration.

Now, the end of its life has been planned. According to NASA, the station is expected to be de-orbited by 2031 (an extension from the original plan to de-orbit by 2020). But if the ISS is so important, why is there an end-of-life plan at all?

The first components of the ISS were launched in the 1990s. And although many parts have been updated and replaced, its not feasible to replace everything.

In particular, the main structural components cant be replaced. While they are checked, monitored and repaired, there are limits to this. The ISS was not designed to last forever.

It survives in a harsh environment, travelling at 27,500 kilometres per hour, with a day/night cycle every 90 minutes (the time it takes the ISS to orbit Earth).

The temperature differences experienced during each cycle put a small fatiguing load on the structure. Over a few years, this is not significant. But over the course of decades this can cause fatigue failures in the metal structure.

So there comes a time when the costs and risks of maintaining the ISS become too high, and this has been determined to be in 2030.

As with all objects under the influence of gravity, given time the ISS would simply fall down to Earth. This is because, even at the orbital altitude of 400km, there is some drag due to small particles. In fact, the ISS currently requires a regular boost to lift its orbital altitude, which is slowly but constantly decreasing.

A natural re-entry would be a completely uncontrolled process, and there would be no way of predicting where this would take place. The responsible (and planned) approach is to use thrusters to slow the ISS down, causing the de-orbit to happen much faster and in a specific location decided in advance.

The slowing down will initially be done using thrusters on the station, and on support vehicles docked to the station. This process may take a few months and will slowly reduce the orbital altitude of the ISS, preparing it for the final re-entry phase.

In the final phase, the deceleration will be much more rapid, and will determine the ISSs final re-entry trajectory. Although it hasnt been decided exactly how the ISS will reach its final deceleration, the favoured option is to use three modified Russian Progress spacecraft.

The spacecraft will be docked to the ISS and fire their propulsion systems to achieve the required deceleration controlling the trajectory of the re-entry and the re-entry location.

It will take a couple of minutes for the ISS to pass through the atmosphere. Its likely the higher-altitude phase of this will take place near or above Australia.

The re-entry will be a visually spectacular event, resembling multiple large shooting stars. An increasing number of space debris breakup events have been observed and videoed over the last few years.

But these re-entries have been small objects, sized in the order of metres, such as the ATV-1 and Cygnus spacecrafts. Meanwhile, the ISS is about the size of a football field, and will be correspondingly more spectacular.

Due to the danger of components reaching the surface, it will be important to make sure they fall where there is minimal risk to people or property. Even a controlled re-entry will potentially spread pieces of debris over an area of hundreds, if not thousands, of kilometres.

This is why the ISS re-entry (and most space debris de-orbits) will target an area known as the South Pacific Ocean Uninhabited Area (SPOUA), the centre of which is known as Point Nemo, or the Spacecraft Cemetery .

The SPOUA is used as Earths dumping ground for space debris. Its the largest uninhabited area on Earth, and hence has the lowest risk associated with debris from re-entry.

The ISS will be travelling at something like 6km per second when it hits the atmosphere. This high speed will cause the air in front of the structure to heat up significantly, reaching temperatures in excess of 10,000.

This will cause the structure to break into smaller pieces. Most of it will burn up as it falls, but its very likely some small pieces will survive especially some of the heavier and denser internal components.

Any surviving debris will eventually sink into the ocean and disappear.

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The International Space Station is set to come home in a fiery blaze and Australia will likely have a front row seat - The Conversation AU

Black holes are fascinating. No human being has ever been near one, and it wasnt until 2019 that scientists even managed to take a snapshot of one. And yet, ever since they have first been hypothesized to exist, black holes have exerted an inexorable pull on our collective imagination. Black holes are a reminder of the strangeness of our universe, spots of infinite density and at the same time impenetrable emptiness. Since even light must bend to the gravity of a black hole, we cannot know what happens inside of it. They are the points where the laws of nature as well as our limited human imagination break down.

Video games love a good puzzle, and so its no big surprise that black holes have a habit of popping up here and there. What may be surprising, however, is just how many forms and shapes they take. As symbols of the unknowable and the extreme, black holes are highly malleable and appear in all sorts of games, playing many parts.

Before we cross the event horizon of this article, be sure to check out our other gaming content. If you're wanting to see the cosmos, our guide to the best space exploration games has you covered. We've also got our best VR space games guide for people seeking a truly immersive experience.

Warning: this article contains spoilers for the following games: Elite Dangerous, No Mans Sky, Outer Wilds, Exo One, Genesis Noir, If Found..., Night in the Woods, Dark Souls III, The Banner Saga 2, and Fortnite.

The first and most obvious place to look are space simulators. Space Engine, Universe Sandbox, and Black Hole Simulator, considered some of the best VR space experiences, are intricate and educational toys that give us a chance to gawk at black holes up close, to fiddle and prod and poke. What happens if we swap our Sun with a giant black hole? Or if we let two black holes collide? But no matter how detailed the simulation or how many objects we send into oblivion, we will always firmly remain on the outside, looking in.

Science-fiction games give themselves some more leeway when it comes to speculating about black holes. In Elite Dangerous, we undertake the long journey to one of the games black holes, with the most popular destination being Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. No Mans Sky and Outer Wilds actually let you enter black holes, but they function merely as glorified shortcuts to other parts of the universe. It makes you wonder where do black holes lead to?

While this approach arguably deprives black holes of some of their mystery, Outer Wilds does draw on the hypothesized counterparts of black holes: white holes that push instead of pull and expel everything that has fallen into a corresponding black hole. In the games fiction, the ancient people called the Nomai have figured out a way to travel through time and space using warp cores consisting of a black/white hole pair.

During the game, we get to visit the place where the Nomai created these cores: Black Hole Forge on the planet Brittle Hollow. One of the most memorable locations in Outer Wilds, Brittle Hollow is being devoured from the inside by the black hole at its center. Its an awe-inspiring sight, and if you happen to fall inside the hole, the white hole will spit you out in another corner of the solar system, alongside the discarded fragments of Brittle Hollow. The Nomais advanced technology is connected to the time loop that lies at the heart of the game; its technology powered by black holes that sends you back 22 minutes into the past every time the Sun goes supernova.

In Exo One, we embark on a cosmic journey in a gravity-manipulating spacecraft. The destination, it turns out, is a black hole that allows us to travel back in time, preventing a catastrophe on Jupiter that killed the main characters colleagues at the start of the game. Exo Ones cosmos is a fantastical, even mystical place. Its black hole isnt simply a space-time anomaly, but is intimately tied to the fate of our pilot.

It's somewhat reminiscent of the black hole time travel premise in Interstellar, where crossing the event horizon of a black hole allows someone to interact with the past and change events. With our current understanding of physics, it's almost certainly impossible, but it's a fascinating concept nonetheless.

A black hole as a journeys enigmatic endpoint, promising a chance to see and act beyond time; Genesis Noir, though a very different game from Exo One, follows a similar trajectory. The game presents an allegorical and fantastical interpretation of the events leading up to the Big Bang and the creation of our universe. Presented in a jazzy film noir style, the story follows the attempts of No Man (a metaphorical representation of time) to save his love Miss Mass (a metaphorical representation of, you guessed it, mass) from a bullet shot by Golden Boy (energy). To do so, No Man seeks to create a black hole that would swallow the bullet. But, since the shooting of Miss Mass is also what causes the Big Bang, saving her would also prevent the universe from coming into existence. In the end, No Man has an epiphany that convinces him to drop his quest and make place for the universe.

Genesis Noir is full of metaphors, and its black hole can be read as a stand-in for self-destructive urges and a negation of being itself. Even in this allegorical and abstract cosmogony, the significance of the black hole is decidedly personal and tied up in psychological struggles.

Genesis Noir is just one example of black holes acting as metaphors for personal crises. If Found... presents its narrative of Kasio, a young Irish trans womans struggles to be accepted and find her place, through an entwined dual narrative: one is an exploration of a diary, and the other a metaphorical science-fiction story. The sci-fi story revolves around a lonely astronaut called Cassiopeia and her discovery of a black hole which threatens to swallow Earth.

It soon becomes clear that the black hole expresses Kasios existential fears, feelings of isolation, and sense of futility. The breakdown of space-time inside a black hole is reframed as a personal, psychological breakdown: Time doesnt exist in a black hole. Every moment crushed together, past and present and future in one endless scream. No way to change anything.

Now, Night in the Woods doesnt explicitly name black holes, but its preoccupation with the night sky and metaphorical holes is very similar to If Found.... Here, too, our protagonist Mae is threatened by black emptiness expressing mental health crises, namely her feelings of emptiness, dissociation, and fragmentation. The game speaks of the hole in the center of everything and her diary depicts Mae being swallowed by a black hole-like maelstrom.

If black holes can be used as shorthand for personal crises, it stands to reason that they can also be symbols of cosmic crises. In Dark Souls III, the Sun turns dark after a certain point in the game. The ominous spectacle is never explained, but recalls either an eclipse, the Darksign (symbol of the dying light and the curse of the undead), or a black hole. The Banner Saga trilogy has a similar motif. In the third game, we learn about the existence of a subterranean Dark Sun, and that it was its destruction which released a giant serpent as well as an all-consuming Darkness that spreads across the world.

Even though these games do not, strictly speaking, show black holes, theres more than a little family resemblance between them, and they can easily be interpreted as black holes through the lens of myth and folklore, with the likes of apocalyptic dragons or wolves swallowing the Sun. Interestingly, the symbol of the dark or black Sun is a very old idea that predates our knowledge of black holes for many centuries. Its part of the tradition of alchemical and hermetic thought, signifying the dark, material fire as opposed to the pure and bright fire of the spiritual world.

All of this sounds like a very serious matter. But black holes can also be light-hearted, playful, and even silly. Just look at the End Event of Fortnites first chapter, when the entire game world disappeared into a black hole and made the game unplayable for a few days, or the black hole item in Ultimate Chicken Horse, which pulls on nearby objects and changes the trajectory of arrows.

For every grounded simulation, theres a mystical and reason-defying black hole. For every black hole that throws light on a characters deepest struggles, theres a playful or toy-like singularity. It is precisely because of their inherent emptiness and silence, their defiance of meaning and understanding, and their definition through negation and apparent paradox, that both exerts a powerful pull on our imagination and that enables black holes to play a vast range of very different parts.

As a cipher, the black hole can stand for the inescapable, for profound lack or distortion, for the grand and unknown mysteries of the universe, for fantastical possibilities and godlike power over space-time itself, and more. And since video games remain the only way of getting close to a black hole, they will continue being anything but a singularity in future games.

Play Outer Wilds, Elite Dangerous, Exo One, No Man's Sky, & Genesis Noir on Xbox Game pass

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The singular pull of black holes in games - Space.com