Fwd: Human Spaceflight News - January 2, 1014

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From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: January 2, 2014 11:18:02 AM CST
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - January 2, 1014

Again Happy New Year.  

 

Don't forget, we have delayed our monthly retirees luncheon to next Thursday, January 9^th, at Hibachi Grill in Webster at 11:30.  Hope you can join us for the first luncheon of the New Year.   Hope this reminder gets to you before you are already headed there thinking it was on for today.   Sorry for the late send out.

 

 

 

 

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION: Astronaut Karen Nyberg and the current crew aboard the station, Mike Hopkins, Rick Mastracchio and JAXA's Koichi Wakata wish people a happy new year through a video broadcast in Times Square during New York City's New Year's Eve bash. Check out the message on space.com:   http://go.nasa.gov/1d1mbyt

 

Human Spaceflight News

Thursday – Jan. 2, 2014

 

HEADLINES AND LEADS

 

Astronauts Wish Earth Happy New Year from Space

Tariq Malik – Space.com

The people of Earth rang in 2014 with raucous celebrations that reached all the way to space, where astronauts on the International Space Station helped usher in the New Year.

Space launch highlights for 2014

Paul Sutherland -- SEN

Commercial companies will play an increasingly important part in space flight in 2014. Some will continue to fly satellites or carry supplies to the International Space Station. But a highlight is expected to be the first sub-orbital flights by Virgin Galactic.

Commentary

5 Ways Outer Space Taught Us About Earth in 2013

Lauren Lyons – Spaceflight Insider

Another year of the Internet has come to a close, which can only mean one thing: time for more lists! The science magazines will undoubtedly create exciting top 10′s of the most awesome things to happen in space in 2013. But some of the stories that most need telling are not the big-ticket tales of human spaceflight and new exoplanet discoveries.

All Systems GO For SpaceX  First U.S. Space Launch Of 2014 On Jan. 3

Mike Killian -- AmericaSpace

With 2013 now but a memory America's space program is wasting no time kicking off the new year, with the first U.S. space launch scheduled to blast out of Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Friday, Jan. 3, courtesy of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX).  The company is scheduled to launch a commercial telecommunications satellite into a geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) for Asian satellite operator Thaicom Public Limited Company (PLC).

Hubble Space Telescope finds clouds on super-Earth, Neptune-sized planets

Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, two research teams have discovered thick layers of high-altitude clouds covering the atmospheres of two relatively nearby exoplanets: a super-Earth and a "warm Neptune."

Hubble spots hints of clouds in exoplanets' atmospheres

Alan Boyle, NBC News

Observations from the Hubble Space Telescope suggest that a super-Earth and a warm Neptune-sized planet far beyond our solar system are blanketed by high-altitude clouds.

Commentary

Citizens make sun rise; government makes it set

Michael Swickard – Albuquerque, Journal

It was 45 years ago that man first orbited the moon. The moon was landed upon six times, with the last time four years later. Sadly, America walked away from the moon and ceded it to the Chinese who this month landed and sent a rover to stir up the moon dust.

Can ISRO pull off GSLV-D5 launch this time?

N. Madhavan – Business Today [India Today Group]

After several setbacks in its attempt to master the cryogenic rocket technology, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is finally set to launch a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) with an indigenous cryogenic engine.

No man to moon mission, says Isro

India's first unmanned lunar probe, Chandrayaan-1, was launched by Isro in Oct 2008, and operated until Aug 2009

T E Narasimhan – Business Standard [India]

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has said that it is not planning for any 'Man to Moon' mission.

Space tourists flock to the heavens

Kate Lunau -- Maclean's

Only 550 or so people have ever flown into space. It's remarkable, then, that almost 700 clients have already signed up with Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson's private space-tourism company, which has yet to begin offering commercial space flights. The year 2014 will be big for Virgin Galactic.

 

COMPLETE STORIES

 

Astronauts Wish Earth Happy New Year from Space

Tariq Malik – Space.com

The people of Earth rang in 2014 with raucous celebrations that reached all the way to space, where astronauts on the International Space Station helped usher in the New Year.

Three space station astronauts recorded a video wishing humanity a Happy New Year that was broadcast in Times Square during New York City's epic New Year's Eve bash. The video was introduced by NASA astronaut Mike Massimino from Times Square and featured on the iconic Toshiba Vision screen.

In the video, NASA astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins, joined by Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, wish people on Earth a happy new year before floating up out of view. The trio makes up half of the space station's Expedition 38 crew, with three Russian cosmonauts rounding out the team.

NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg, who returned from the International Space Station in November, also shared well wishes for New Yorkers and the world in 2014.

"As seen form 260 miles above its surface, our earth is a beautiful, fragile place. We are living and working on the International Space Station to learn about our Earth, and to learn how to send humans farther into our solar system than we've even been before," Nyberg said. "From all of us at NASA, in space and on Earth, Happy New Year."

Space launch highlights for 2014

Paul Sutherland -- SEN

 Commercial companies will play an increasingly important part in space flight in 2014. Some will continue to fly satellites or carry supplies to the International Space Station. But a highlight is expected to be the first sub-orbital flights by Virgin Galactic.

After flight tests of the WhiteKnightTwo mother ship and its spacecraft SpaceShipTwo, plus firings of the rocket engine in 2013, Sir Richard Branson's company is aiming to carry its first fare-paying passengers before the new year is over.

A Virgin Galactic spokesman told Sen: "We are on schedule for a 2014 launch of commercial service of the spaceship." CEO George Whitesides added: "It is tremendously exciting to see years of work begin to come to fruition. We are proceeding cautiously but are moving efficiently towards our goal of commercial operations."

Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic is aiming to carry its first fare-paying passengers before 2014 is over

A milestone sometime during 2014 is set to be the first uncrewed test flight for NASA of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle which will eventually carry astronauts to an asteroid. A Delta IV Heavy rocket will lift the spacecraft from Cape Canaveral into an extended orbit around the Earth before it splashes down in the Pacific.

Any time after 7 January, Orbital Sciences' Cygnus spacecraft will launch from Wallops Island, Virginia, atop an Antares rocket, on a commercial resupply mission to the ISS that was delayed from December because of the pump failure on the station.

The company is due to send another Cygnus on 1 May carrying more cargo and crew supplies to the orbiting outpost as part of their contract with NASA.

Rivals SpaceX will make their third commercial resupply mission to the ISS on 22 February, lifted by a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Further cargo flights are due to follow on 6 June, 12 September and 5 December.

Routine Russian cargo flights by Progress rockets will launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, on 5 February, 28 April, 24 July and 22 October.

Four Soyuz missions will also fly from Baikonur, carrying new crews to the ISS. Soyuz 38 will lift off on 26 March with Steve Swanson, Oleg Artemyev and Alexander Skvortsov aboard. Soyuz 39 will follow on 28 May carrying Reid Wiseman, Maxim Suraev and Germany's Alexander Gerst.

On 30 September, Soyuz 40 will take Barry Wilmore, Yelena Serova and Alexander Samoukutyaev into orbit and finally, on 1 December, Soyuz 40 will carry Terry Virts, Italy's Samantha Cristoforetti and another astronaut, yet to be named, to the ISS.

Early in 2014, the communications capability of the NASA Space Network will be boosted with the launch by an Atlas V from Cape Canaveral of the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite-L (TDRS-L) on 23 January.

Then on 27 February, the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory, an international mission led by NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA, will blast off from Tanegashima Space Center, Japan, to provide state-of-the-art monitoring of rain and snowfall worldwide.

Biggest event in the European Space Agency's year will be the encounter between its Rosetta space mission and Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The probe, launched ten years ago, will be woken from hibernation on 20 January.

First images of the comet are expected in May followed by a detailed survey, after which Rosetta's lander Philae will touch down on the comet's nucleus in November.

After successfully deploying payloads on its second flight in 2013, ESA's new small launcher Vega will make its first commercial flight in spring, hoisting Kazakhstan's DZZ-HR high-resolution earth observation satellite into space.

Later in the year, it will launch ESA's experimental IXV vehicle into a sub-orbital flight to test new technologies during its hypersonic and supersonic flight phases before the spacecraft lands in the Pacific.

In spring a Soyuz will lift-off from Europe's spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana, for the first mission of ESA's Copernicus Earth-observation programme. Sentinel Ia will provide 24-hour radar images to help in disasters, plus marine and land monitoring, civil security and climate studies.

Europe's heavy-lift launcher Ariane 5 will also be busy. In June it will fly the fifth Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) Georges Lemaître to the ISS.

In a boost to Galileo, Europe's satellite navigation programme, the rocket will launch six new satellites from mid-year, allowing full demonstration of the constellation's power.

It looks sure to be another exciting year in space. Keep up to date by following Sen.com - and Happy New Year from everyone on our news team as we continue to soar ever higher too!

Commentary

5 Ways Outer Space Taught Us About Earth in 2013

Lauren Lyons – Spaceflight Insider

Another year of the Internet has come to a close, which can only mean one thing: time for more lists! The science magazines will undoubtedly create exciting top 10′s of the most awesome things to happen in space in 2013. But some of the stories that most need telling are not the big-ticket tales of human spaceflight and new exoplanet discoveries. For most people, it's the less flashy things that can mean the most in the lives of people right down here on Earth. And these benefits are not limited to spinoffs like microelectronics and high-tech medical technologies that people from rich countries enjoy; from human rights to food security, space assets provide incredibly meaningful humanitarian contributions to the planet. Here are five of the many ways in which space touched us down here on Earth in 2013:

1) Space assets helped human rights workers uncover war crimes in the Central African Republic

Since the March 2013 coup and ousting of President François Bozizé by the rebel Seleka Coalition, more than a thousand people have been killed, over 100,000 displaced, and the situation is growing worse by the day with reports of rape, torture, executions, and other atrocities. In the CAR, space-based intelligence gathering, along with the stories and research from people on the ground, lead to the United Nations' decision in November to unanimously authorize the deployment of peacekeeping troops into the country.

Satellite imagery becomes particularly useful in conflict zones where it is too dangerous to send in reporters and aid workers, and when affected villages are too remote to reach by vehicle. In response, Human Rights Watch has used satellite imagery to collect detailed evidence of tell-tale signs of humans rights abuses. For example, viewing arson attacks on multiple civilian villages (considered a war crime by international humanitarian law) in the CAR, such as the gold mining village of Camp Bangui, where "black burn" scars indicate around half of the village has been destroyed. In other areas, satellite imagery detailing new tent-like structures indicate mass displacement of people — another common indicator of abuses.

In addition, the escalating violence between Christians and Muslims has incited the very real fear that genocide is imminent. In other conflicts such as those in the Sudan and in Kosovo, human rights abuse investigators have used satellites to look for mass graves — a feature commonly correlated with genocide. In fact, a mass grave was discovered by Red Cross workers a few days ago in Bengui, the CAR capital. Let us hope that this is one use satellites will not need to serve.

2) Space assets were used in search and rescue operations in the Philippines

We all saw the harrowing images of Typhoon Haiyan, which left 6,111 people dead, 1,799 missing, and 4.4 million homeless — a disaster so devastating and disruptive that weeks after the storm, over a thousand bodies still remain unburied.

During the immediate aftermath of the storm, rescue workers used space assets to help to coordinate the search, rescue, and relief efforts. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) deployed satellite phones and broadband satellite terminals for data to many of the regions most affected. This allowed for those conducting humanitarian assistance to coordinate logistics when deploying medical assistance, food, and water to those in need; allowed rescue workers to figure out how to reach victims when roads and landmarks are destroyed, rendering maps useless; and helped people contact their loved ones after being separated. In addition, companies like DigitalGlobe and Astrium have already (at no charge) provided emergency workers with imagery that detail the devastating before and after images. As the country rebuilds, images such as these will be critical in assessing the damage and prioritizing recovery efforts. The United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response (UN-SPIDER) has collected and made available several images, all accessible to the general public.

3) Satellites helped map the density of the world's vegetation 

More than 800 million people worldwide suffer from malnutrition and chronic hunger. According to the World Health Organization, one of the key pillars to food security is food availability — that is, having sufficient quantities of food available on a consistent basis. In an effort to better understand where this is most challenging, Earth observation satellites provide detailed mapping of agriculture activities, including the distribution and condition of crops.

In November 2103, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) released a set of stunning color images detailing the places on Earth that are green vegetation rich, and the places that were lacking due to stress conditions such as drought. By compiling data gathered over the course of a year, the Suomi NPP satellite allowed us yet another way to visualize the Earth that was both data rich and beautiful. A particularly stunning view: images of the of vast North African dryness, with the green colored banks of the river Nile – the agricultural lifeblood of the regions through which it flows.

Another valuable mapping contribution came from the European Space Agency's Proba-V satellite, which in July after a month in space captured its own snapshot of Earth's vegetation density. This is only one of the latest in satellites orbiting the Earth that are producing data that when combined with other information such as weather satellites, can be used for drought monitoring and mitigation, and precise early warning forecasting for regions at risk for food insecurity.

4) Space satellites provided climate scientists with information on the record lows of Arctic sea ice

Every year the arctic sea ice melts to its summer minimum. But on September 13, 2013, analysis of satellite data by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) showed sea ice had reached the 6th lowest level in the 35-year history of satellite measurement (1.97 million square miles). Now, this was an increase over the previous year, which was the all-time record low (1.32 million square miles); but it was still consistent with the long-term downward trend, a decline that has accelerated since 2007, and lead to a 40 percent loss of sea ice since 1980.

The loss of sea ice cover is a leading indicator of climate change, and many scientists believe that within decades, the Arctic will be entirely ice-free in the summer months. Why does this matter? Not only do many animals depend on the ice for their homes, but native peoples of the Arctic depend on these animals for food. The ice also reflects sunlight back out into space, which helps prevent the Earth from getting too warm. Less ice means less reflection; less reflection means a warmer planet and — you guessed it — even more ice melting. Several space satellites are orbiting our poles and observing these phenomena, and will continue to report back down on Earth in 2014. Sadly, the predictions indicate the results will not be good.

5) O3B launched a microsatellite constellation to provide affordable broadband internet to the developing world

The ability to communicate vital information, provide education in an increasingly paperless world, and provide a platform for free speech is becoming more and more dependent on the ability to access the Internet. A 2009 World Bank study estimated that a 10 percent increase in broadband penetration in low and middle income countries yielded an additional 1.38 percent in GDP growth. And many — including the United Nations – have declared universal access to the internet to be a human right.

In developed countries, ground-based fiber has become the dominant technology for delivering broadband internet. But in developing nations, laying ground-based infrastructure can be cost-prohibitive due to geography, rural and remote populations, and low purchasing power of users. And before recently, satellite internet access was also costly, as countries would have to rely on telecommunications giants and their often steep fees to provide high-speed services to their citizens.

The last decade has seen the popularization of small, cost-effective "microsatellites" that can be combined into networks or "constellations," which use their collective capability to deliver high-speed data, which can be an excellent lower-cost solution for emerging markets.

One such company that is revolutionizing this space is O3b Networks, a start-up founded in 2007. Their goal: provide broadband connectivity to the "other 3 billion" people on the planet who do not have internet access. In June 2013, O3b successfully launched its first 4 satellites (of a constellation that will reach 16), and in 2014 will begin to provide its first services. And they've already got users signed up: some of O3b's first customers include governments and companies servicing Papua New Guinea, Somalia, and Peru. The company has plans to continue to extend services across Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific.

Now, I would not be a proper space geek if I didn't at least mention the incredible feats that have been accomplished in 2013 from a high technology and exploration standpoint, such as SpaceX's Dragon Capsule docking to the International Space Station, China landing on the Moon, or my personal favorite, finding water geysers on Europa. However, sometimes it's valuable to look beyond the razzle dazzle, and reflect on some of the more tangible benefits of investing in space — especially those that are improving the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable of us. To those who value protecting the child suffering from malnutrition or the refugees fleeing war, it is these stories that will connect our hearts when the money gets tight, our imaginations demand a pause from the wonder, and reality requires from us full on confrontation of the real wounds of humanity that need healing.

All Systems GO For SpaceX First U.S. Space Launch Of 2014 On Jan. 3

Mike Killian -- AmericaSpace

With 2013 now but a memory America's space program is wasting no time kicking off the new year, with the first U.S. space launch scheduled to blast out of Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Friday, Jan. 3, courtesy of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX).  The company is scheduled to launch a commercial telecommunications satellite into a geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) for Asian satellite operator Thaicom Public Limited Company (PLC).

The 7,330 pound hybrid C-band and Ku-band satellite, identified as Thaicom-6, will launch from Space Launch Complex-40 (SLC-40) atop SpaceX's new upgraded 224-foot tall Falcon-9 v1.1 rocket.  The mission will be the third launch of the new rocket, and will loft Thaicom-6 skyward no earlier than 5:50 p.m. EST, with the launch window extending until 7:17 p.m. EST.

The satellite, which was manufactured and tested by Orbital Sciences Corporation in Dulles, Virginia, was designed based on Orbital's very successful GEOStar-2 satellite platform, which can accommodate all types By Amina Khan – Los Angeles Timesof commercial communications payloads and is compatible with all major commercial launchers.

Last Saturday SpaceX successfully conducted a Static Fire test on their rocket at Cape Canaveral, hoisting it vertical atop its launch pad and putting the vehicle and launch pad systems through a full countdown scenario which ended with firing of the rocket's nine Merlin 1D engines.  The launch dress rehearsal, according to SpaceX, went as expected, and the team at Cape Canaveral is continuing with work to support a launch attempt in 48 hours.

Once launched the satellite will be placed in a GTO and will be operated at 78.5 degrees East Longitude. Thaicom-6 is equipped with 18 C-band and 8 Ku-band transponders to provide service coverage to the growing satellite television market in Southeast Asia, South Asia and Southern Africa (including Madagascar).

"This deal highlights the confidence that satellite operators have in SpaceX capabilities, and is the latest example of the effect SpaceX is having on the international commercial launch market," said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk when the deal between SpaceX and Thaicom was announced in 2011.  "Asia is a critical market and SpaceX is honored to support its growing launch needs with a reliable US-based solution."

The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is offering launch viewing to the public from the Apollo/Saturn V viewing area, which is roughly 6 miles away from SLC-40 and offers the closest public viewing for this particular launch.  There is an additional charge to be transported to that viewing area, in addition to the regular admission cost to the Visitor Complex. Off-site the alternative free viewing locations would be along the Indian River on HWY-1 in Titusville or along the 528 next to Port Canaveral, although both locations are significantly further than the viewing being offered by the KSC Visitor Complex.

SpaceX launched their first GEO communications satellite, the SES-8 geostationary communications satellite, for SES World Skies into orbit less than a month ago, and in doing so proved they can do more than just deliver to low-Earth orbit.

"The Falcon 9 will serve our unique needs at Thaicom. This dedicated launch vehicle is both cost-effective and best-matched to our requirements," said Arak Chonlatanon, CEO of Thaicom Plc. "We look forward to working closely with the SpaceX team to ensure that the Thaicom 6 satellite will be successfully launched."

Friday's forecast from the 45th Space Wing calls for a 90% chance of favorable conditions expected at T-0, with the only real concern being a chance of strong winds gusting over 30mph, which would violate launch commit criteria.  In the event of a 24-hour scrub the forecast for a Saturday, Jan. 4, launch attempt remains the same.

Hubble Space Telescope finds clouds on super-Earth, Neptune-sized planets

Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, two research teams have discovered thick layers of high-altitude clouds covering the atmospheres of two relatively nearby exoplanets: a super-Earth and a "warm Neptune."

Scientists are beginning to get a handle on how to study the atmospheres on alien planets, and have even found green clouds on the super-Jupiter planet, Kepler-7b. But the findings, published in the journal Nature this week, show that clouds can cover smaller planets too — including two of the most common types of planets found in the Milky Way.

Neither of the planets, GJ 436b and GJ 1214b, are quite like anything found in our solar system. GJ 436b is a warm Neptune that's slightly larger than Neptune and much closer to its host star. Thus unlike our own distant, gassy ice giant, GJ 436b's surface temperature sits about a blistering 980 degrees Fahrenheit. It is 36 light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo. GJ 1214b, a super-Earth whose radius is 2.7 times that of our home planet, sits about 40 light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus.

"Super-Earth and Neptune-class planets collectively represent an intriguing and populous type of extrasolar planet whose exotic atmosphere may have no true analogies in the solar system," Julianne Moses of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo., who was not involved in the research, wrote in a commentary on the papers.

To look at their atmospheres, the researchers wait for the planet to cross in front of its star and look at the starlight filtering through the backlit planet's thin layer of atmosphere. They usually look for dips in certain wavelengths of light — a luminous fingerprint caused by chemicals in the atmosphere, which would reveal what the planet's shell of air was made of.

But for these planets, they found no such chemical fingerprint imprinted on the light. The most likely reason, the researchers surmised, would be a layer of high-altitude clouds blocking the view.

"However, high-altitude clouds on these two exoplanets would not resemble the clouds we see in the solar system," Moses wrote. "Possible candidates include potassium chloride or zinc sulphide 'dust' clouds."

Hubble spots hints of clouds in exoplanets' atmospheres

Alan Boyle, NBC News

Observations from the Hubble Space Telescope suggest that a super-Earth and a warm Neptune-sized planet far beyond our solar system are blanketed by high-altitude clouds.

Astronomers lay out their case for cloudiness in this week's issue of the journal Nature. This isn't the first time clouds have been detected around extrasolar planets, but it does extend the spectrum of atmospheric study to new classes of alien worlds.

"Both planets are telling us something about the diversity of planet types that occur outside of our own solar system; in this case we are discovering we may not know them as well as we thought," Caltech astronomer Heather Knutson, a leader of one of the Hubble research teams, said in a NASA news release. "We'd really like to determine the size at which these planets transition from looking like mini-gas giants to something more like a water world or a rocky, scaled-up version of the Earth. Both of these observations are fundamentally trying to answer that question."

Knutson and her colleagues focused on GJ 436b, the warm Neptune, which is 36 light-years away in the constellation Leo. They used Hubble to track the planet in fine detail as it passed in front of its parent star, and looked for the chemical fingerprint of starlight shining through the edge of its atmosphere. The interesting thing is that they saw no distinguishing fingerprint.

"Either this planet has a high cloud layer obscuring the view, or it has a cloud-free atmosphere that is deficient in hydrogen, which would make it very unlike Neptune," Knutson explained. "Instead of hydrogen, it could have relatively large amounts of heavier molecules such as water vapor, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide, which would compress the atmosphere and make it hard for us to detect any chemical signatures."

A different research team, led by Laura Kreidberg and Jacob Bean of the University of Chicago, focused of GJ 1214b, the super-Earth, which is 40 light-years from Earth in the constellation Ophiuchus. Previous observations produced a profile similar to GJ 436b: Spectral analysis showed that the atmosphere was dominated by water vapor or hydrogen, but there was no discernible difference between the bulk of the planet's disk and the edge of the atmospheric layer.

In this week's Nature paper, researchers say Hubble's near-infrared observations show conclusively that GJ 1214b is blanketed by high clouds that hide the super-Earth's lower atmosphere and surface. They ruled out the possibility that the atmosphere was cloud-free.

The researchers say GJ 1214b's clouds would probably be unlike Earth's, due to big differences in atmospheric temperature and pressure. They suggest that the clouds could contain zinc sulfide or potassium chloride, or perhaps the kinds of hydrocarbons found in the murky haze that surrounds Titan, a mysterious moon of Saturn.

Commentary

Citizens make sun rise; government makes it set

Michael Swickard – Albuquerque, Journal

It was 45 years ago that man first orbited the moon. The moon was landed upon six times, with the last time four years later. Sadly, America walked away from the moon and ceded it to the Chinese who this month landed and sent a rover to stir up the moon dust.

Perhaps that is the way it should be with great nations — they can only be great as long as the people feel the challenge to be great. Then they must join the rest of the nations in the world that are just trying to get from paycheck to paycheck and not lose their minds with their teenagers.

Average nations do not reach for the stars.

As we start 2014, it reminds me of when Japan was rising and China was drifting down into a lesser nation. It took a long time for China to repose into a third world but now, it might be on the rise again.

In 607 A.D., a Japanese leader, Prince Shotoku, sent a delegation to China led by diplomat Ono no Imoko. He had the dubious honor of carrying this message: Greetings from the Leader of the Land of the Rising Sun to the Leader of the Land of the Setting Sun.

That made China mad. How mad? The aforementioned Japanese diplomat returned home to Japan all cut up in a box. In fact, the insulting message resonated several times in history when China wanted to stomp Japan. Twice they were caught crossing the sea in a typhoon, which is not the textbook way of invading.

And then Japan, full of itself leading up to WWII, devastated China, killing 30 million Chinese. Now it would seem China is the Land of the Rising Sun and Japan, which does not understand free markets, is the Land of the Setting Sun. China going up, Japan going down.

There are Greece, Spain, France and other European nations plummeting into the financial abyss of spending more than they have for generations. That brings us to America. Should we also be known as the Land of the Setting Sun?

Tony Blair said the measure of a nation is how many people want in and how many want out. Some Americans are leaving our nation to escape our confiscatory tax policy. Their problem is to find a government not fouling its own nest.

Here in America, our space program has mostly been dismantled. The space station was put up as a fueling area for craft reaching to the moon and planets. But America now hitches rides to the Space Station on Russian craft. Russian President Vladimir Putin this week said he is going to revitalize the Russian space program.

What is the American plan? No plan. We are waiting for the 2014 elections to make any meaningful change in our society, but then it will be into the 2016 presidential elections and so we cannot make any kind of real change and then in 2017 … sorry, the 2018 elections are coming and we cannot make changes. And so on.

I have to admit the fall of our great nation was on my watch and I feel it every day because the America I inherited as a young man was so very different from the America now. That was a "Can do" America that could go to the moon and return safely. Today we have trouble going to the store and returning safely.

We cannot be a great nation while asking for government handouts. The people cannot lead America to greatness when they are sitting on their butts with their free phones and subsidies. America cannot be great in the unemployment line.

Government makes wealth in a small fraction of our population while destroying the greatness in our citizens. It is 2014 and the clock is ticking. Citizens make the sun rise while government makes the sun set.

Michael Swickard hosts the syndicated radio talk show "News New Mexico."

 

Can ISRO pull off GSLV-D5 launch this time?

N. Madhavan – Business Today [India Today Group]

After several setbacks in its attempt to master the cryogenic rocket technology, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is finally set to launch a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) with an indigenous cryogenic engine. The launch of the GSLV-D5 will take place at 4.18 pm on January 5 and the 29-hour countdown will begin a day before.

The mission was cleared after final checks on Thursday. The 49-meter tall GSLV-D5, which weighs 414 tonnes, has been moved to the launch pad at ISRO's space port on the east coast in Sriharikota, some 90 minutes drive from Chennai. The GSLV-D5 will attempt to put in orbit GSAT-14, an advanced communication satellite weighing almost two tonnes. If successful, ISRO will cross a crucial threshold and overcome the technology barrier to put in orbit heavy communication satellites.

A similar attempt by ISRO on August 19 was aborted minutes before the launch after liquid fuel leaked from the second stage of the launch vehicle, raising quality issues in the space agency's processes. ISRO has replaced the second stage fully and the propellant tank has been made with a different aluminium alloy. The first stage and the strap on motors, which bore the brunt of the leaked fuel, are also new.

The global satellite launch market is large and satellites of varying sizes are launched depending on the tasks they are expected to perform. Remote sensing satellites are lighter and are placed in polar orbits (orbits where satellites do not move in tandem with the earth's rotation and so are not suitable for communication purposes). These satellites weigh from a few hundred kilograms to about a tonne. On the other hand, communication satellites are typically heavier weighing between two and five tonnes. And they are placed in geosynchronous transfer orbits where the satellite moves in tandem with the earth's rotation and so the service of the satellite is available for users throughout the day.

ISRO has mastered the art of putting smaller satellites in space. Its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) has had 23 consecutive successful launches and has put 63 satellites in precise orbits (23 Indian and 35 foreign satellites). The PSLV's cost efficiency and reliability has been clearly established in this segment.

But the same cannot be said about ISRO's credentials in launching heavier communication satellites, which is where big business is. ISRO's attempts to break into that market with the GSLV has been met with repeated failures - both technological and operational. The critical element of the GSLV is the cryogenic engine, an engine that is powered by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen stored at very low temperatures. India had initially tied up with Russia for the supply of these engines and got seven of them in the 1990s. But the US objected to this deal on the grounds that it violated the Missile Technology Control Regime. This left ISRO with no choice but to develop the engine on its own (of course, with some Russian help). Besides the US and Russia, Japan, China and the European Space Agency have overcome this technology barrier.

Mastering the cryogenic technology has proved to be a tough challenge for ISRO over the past decade. It has so far attempted seven GSLV launches (six with Russian cryogenic engines and one with the engine it developed on its own) and four of them failed. What is worrisome is that in each instance the failure was for a different reason - fabrication issues, quality issues and the failure of the locally developed cryogenic engine itself. GSLV-D3, which carried the indigenous cryogenic engine, blew up in the sky, sending a clear message that mastering the cryogenic technology is a pre-requisite for ISRO to dream of any meaningful presence in the global satellite launch business. In the meantime, ISRO continued to use the services of the European Space Agency to launch its heavier communication satellites under the INSAT series.

After the failure of the GSLV-D3 in April 2010, ISRO went back to the drawing board and revisited the entire design of the GSLV apart from the indigenous cryogenic engine. Having learnt from the failures of previous launches, extensive testing and large-scale modifications have been made in the GSLV-D5. According to senior ISRO officials, the changes include a redesign of the shroud portion of the launch vehicle to protect the cryogenic engine better, reinforcement of the wire tunnel to withstand higher pressure, improvement to the aerodynamic characteristics of the launch vehicle and re-designing of the fuel booster turbo pump (whose failure caused one of the earlier failures).

Most importantly, ISRO for the first time has performed high-altitude testing for the ignition of the cryogenic engine by simulating vacuum conditions on the ground. This, according to an ISRO official, is a critical element of the preparation. Until now, ISRO did not have facilities to conduct this test. But on August 19 the fuel leak in the second stage and the consequent aborting of the launch meant that the cryogenic stage remained untested. The same stage will be used on Sunday.

If the GSLV-D5 finally lifts off on Sunday and places GSAT-14 in its intended orbit, ISRO will finally overcome its jinx with the advanced cryogenic technology and announce to the world that it is all set to enter the lucrative communication satellite launch market with a distinct cost advantage.

 

No man to moon mission, says Isro

T E Narasimhan – Business Standard [India]

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has said that it is not planning for any 'Man to Moon' mission.

In a statement today, the Organisation said, it has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Institute of Aerospace Medicine (IAM), Indian Air force, Bangalore in March 2009 to carry out  basic research/studies on Human Physiological and Psychological requirements for Human Space Flight crew and for augmenting/updating existing facilities at IAM to cater to ISRO's Human Space Flight Programme as a pre project Research & Development activity.

ISRO currently does not have any project on "Man to Moon". The scope of the MOU between ISRO and IAM does not envisage recruitment of crew for ISRO, said in the statement.

The response comes after a cross section of Media have reported that Isro started recruiting people for its Man to Moon Mission mission.

It may be noted, India's first unmanned lunar probe, Chandrayaan-1, was launched by the Isro in October 2008, and operated until August 2009.

While critics stated that the Mission failed, Isro Chairman K Radhakrishnan said that it was not the mission failed. "We have achieved all the four steps, only the life was a problem. We said two years but after 312 days its closed. People said Chandryaan failed, it is not that Chandrayaan failed".

For Chandrayaan-2, India has decided to go alone, which was originally proposed as an Indo-Russian venture.

It was originally envisaged to be a joint mission between ISRO and the Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, which was supposed to provide the lander. A study recommended that India could itself realise a lander module in a few years and that it could go in for the mission on its own. The Mission is expected to be launched in 2016.

 

Space tourists flock to the heavens

Kate Lunau -- Maclean's

Only 550 or so people have ever flown into space. It's remarkable, then, that almost 700 clients have already signed up with Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson's private space-tourism company, which has yet to begin offering commercial space flights. The year 2014 will be big for Virgin Galactic. If all goes according to plan, Branson and his adult children, Holly and Sam, will be the first private passengers to travel into space aboard Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo craft, ushering in a new era of space flight for the masses.

Virgin Galactic charges $250,000 for a ride. This isn't cheap, but for space travel, it's a bargain: In 2009, when Canadian billionaire and Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté blasted off aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, he paid a reported $35 million for the privilege. Soon, a ticket into space will cost less than a Toronto condo. Clients will spend three days preparing at Spaceport America in New Mexico, the first space hub in the world to host private businesses such as Virgin Galactic; day four is the flight, a two-hour suborbital trip at an altitude of 50,000 feet. Clients experience "the blackness of space, zero gravity, fabulous views of Earth, and you come back an astronaut," says Stephen Attenborough, Virgin Galactic's commercial director. The spaceship is equipped with extra-large windows to capitalize on the view.

Virgin Galactic isn't the only private company with ambitions in space. Earlier this year, Elon Musk's SpaceX successfully flew its Dragon capsule to the International Space Station (ISS) on an unmanned resupply mission, becoming the first private company to reach the station. Orbital Sciences Corporation, another U.S. company, is scheduled to start a series of eight cargo resupply missions to the ISS late this year. Private companies could be ferrying NASA astronauts there as early as 2017. (The U.S., which has had no way to reach the ISS on its own since the Space Shuttle fleet retired in 2011, is using the Soyuz to transport its astronauts.)

Virgin Galactic's suborbital flights won't go as high as the ISS; they're intended to be more affordable and accessible. "We know it will blow people away," Attenborough says. "And it's a doable first step."

The commercial space industry has been plagued by setbacks and delays. Attenborough admits there are no guarantees, yet after years of preparation, the Virgin Galactic team is "quietly confident" that it's reached the home stretch before launching its commercial service with the Branson family aboard. That first flight will be televised on NBC; the company is also planning a reality show, Space Race, in which people compete for a ride on the Virgin Galactic spaceship. Today, the astronauts among us are the rarest of the rare; years, or decades, from now, many of us will know a co-worker, neighbour or relative who's been into space. We may even have a trip booked there ourselves.

 

END

More detailed space news can be found at:

http://spacetoday.net/

 

 

 

 

We need this capability!

Fwd: NASA moon orbiter snaps photo of Chinese rover and its lander

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: January 1, 2014 2:49:21 PM CST
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: NASA moon orbiter snaps photo of Chinese rover and its lander

 

 

NASA moon orbiter snaps photo of Chinese rover and its lander

Chinese lander and rover (arrows) on the surface of the moon. Credit: NASA

GREENBELT, Md., Dec. 31 (UPI) -- China's Yutu rover on the surface of the moon is visible in an image captured by a camera on a NASA satellite orbiting the moon, scientists say.

The 5-foot-wide wheeled vehicle appears as a single pixel in the images from the space agency's Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter.

In the same image, taken from an altitude of 93 miles,the lander that put Yutu down on the moon's surface in the Mare Imbrium Dec. 14 is visible nearby.

Although fairly small, the two craft show up in the LRO images for two reasons, NASA said in a release.

"The solar panels are very effective at reflecting light so the rover shows up as two bright pixels, and the sun is setting thus the rover casts a distinct shadow (as does the lander,)" the space agency said.

The LRO satellite was not in a position to capture images of the actual landing, NASA said, and only arrived directly overhead the Chinese rover on Christmas Day.

 

© 2013 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 

 

===============================================================

 

Fwd: ULA marked banner year in 2013

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: January 1, 2014 2:52:25 PM CST
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: ULA marked banner year in 2013

 

 

 

United Launch Alliance marked banner year in 2013
BY JUSTIN RAY
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
December 31, 2013

Launching a new spacecraft to Mars, one to survey Earth's land resources and a host of national security satellites marked a record-breaking year for United Launch Alliance in 2013.

The company, an alliance between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, conducted 11 launches in 2013, including 8 Atlas and three Delta flights. It was the most number of Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle flights in a year since the program began in 2002. And 10 of the 11 launches, including every Atlas, flew on the first countdown attempt, a remarkable on-time string.

Here is a look back at the year that was:

Vehicle: Atlas 5-401
Payload: TDRS-K
Date: Jan. 30, 2013
Site: Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Advancing from the days of ground stations providing sporadic coverage of man's early exploits in space to the creation of an orbiting satellite network for constant communications, the third generation of NASA's tracking stations in the sky roared off the launch pad on Jan. 30. The Tracking and Data Relay satellite-K was successfully delivered into orbit, capping the quickest pre-flight processing flow to date for an Atlas 5.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4W0kdg-Xio&feature=player_embedded&list=UUnrGPRKAg1PgvuSHrRIl3jg

 

Vehicle: Atlas 5-401
Payload: Landsat
Date: Feb. 11, 2013
Site: Vandenberg AFB, Calif.

Roaring off the launch pad to build upon a 40-year legacy of monitoring the Earth's environment from space, the latest and greatest satellite carrying the name Landsat successfully arrived in orbit on Feb. 11. The Atlas 5 rocket, making its first West Coast deployment mission for NASA, carried the Landsat Data Continuity Mission satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ngIvXmxJQlw&list=UUnrGPRKAg1PgvuSHrRIl3jg

 

Vehicle: Atlas 5-401
Payload: SBIRS GEO 2
Date: March 19, 2013
Site: Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Highly sophisticated infrared eyes to spot incoming enemy missiles against the United States and its allies rocketed into space March 19. The Air Force's second Space Based Infrared System Geosynchronous satellite, known as SBIRS GEO 2 for short, will further upgrade the nation's surveillance network to detect and track missile launches around the globe.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JAO1qxYMvg&feature=player_embedded&list=UUnrGPRKAg1PgvuSHrRIl3jg

 

Vehicle: Atlas 5-401
Payload: GPS 2F-4
Date: May 15, 2013
Site: Cape Canaveral, Fla.

An Atlas rocket and a Global Positioning System satellite were joined together for the first time in 28 years with the successful launch on May 15. The storied history of GPS to provide precision navigation through a space-based constellation of satellites dates back to the 1970s, and Atlas rockets gave the earliest craft their lift into orbit to prove the novel concept would work. This was the first modern-day launch of a GPS bird on the Atlas 5 after Delta rockets had exclusively done the lifting for the past quarter-century.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyKnLMQC_Qk&feature=player_embedded&list=UUnrGPRKAg1PgvuSHrRIl3jg

 

Vehicle: Delta 4 Medium+ (5,4)
Payload: WGS 5
Date: May 24, 2013
Site: Cape Canaveral, Fla.

With one more satellite needed in its new military communications system to extend blanket coverage over virtually the entire planet, the spacecraft to make the network's reach global was sent thundering into orbit May 24 to join the Air Force's broadening constellation serving troops, ships, drones and civilian leaders. A Delta 4 rocket successfully hauled the Wideband Global SATCOM 5 into space.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-T77LshTl0&feature=player_embedded&list=UUnrGPRKAg1PgvuSHrRIl3jg

 

Vehicle: Delta 4 Medium+ (5,4)
Payload: WGS 6
Date: Aug. 7, 2013
Site: Cape Canaveral, Fla.

A rocket launch funded entirely by Australia streaked to orbit Aug. 7 from Cape Canaveral in a show of international cooperation between the U.S. military and its allies. The sixth Wideband Global SATCOM spacecraft was built by Boeing just like the previous five, but this satellite was paid for by Australia instead of the U.S. Air Force.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsUNjhotUxg&feature=player_embedded&list=UUnrGPRKAg1PgvuSHrRIl3jg

 

Vehicle: Delta 4 Heavy
Payload: NROL-65
Date: Aug. 28, 2013
Site: Vandenberg AFB, Calif.

One of the nation's aging optical eyes in the sky for global surveillance is set for replacement following the successful launch of a new observatory Aug. 28 atop a mighty Delta 4-Heavy rocket from California. The classified mission was known as NROL-65 for the National Reconnaissance Office.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYTWEbGWWe8&list=UUnrGPRKAg1PgvuSHrRIl3jg&feature=player_embedded

 

Vehicle: Atlas 5-531
Payload: AEHF 3
Date: Sept. 18, 2013
Site: Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Forging a new constellation of ultra-secure communications satellites that will ring the globe to link the president with military forces anywhere on the planet, an Atlas 5 rocket roared to space Sept. 18 with the Advanced Ultra High Frequency 3 satellite to continue putting the pieces in place for the warfighter.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=O0swRnkKoTc&list=UUnrGPRKAg1PgvuSHrRIl3jg

 

Vehicle: Atlas 5-401
Payload: MAVEN
Date: Nov. 18, 2013
Site: Cape Canaveral, Fla.

NASA's next orbiter at Mars was sent on its interplanetary cruise from Earth to the Red Planet, a voyage of 10 months and 479 million miles. The mission of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) will probe the past of the Martian atmosphere and try to explain the current conditions on the neighboring world. An Atlas 5 sent MAVEN soaring on Nov. 18.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BJR8jhZFyeg&list=UUnrGPRKAg1PgvuSHrRIl3jg

 

Vehicle: Atlas 5-501
Payload: NROL-39
Date: Dec. 5, 2013
Site: Vandenberg AFB, Calif.

A clandestine radar-imaging satellite was placed into a backwards-flying retrograde orbit from Vandenberg on Dec. 5 by an Atlas 5 in a frigid nighttime launch. The classified mission was known as NROL-39 for the National Reconnaissance Office.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UUnrGPRKAg1PgvuSHrRIl3jg&v=pobAggvJlOQ&feature=player_embedded

 

© 2013 Spaceflight Now Inc.

 

===============================================================

 

Fwd: Universe Today's Top 10 (or so) Stories of 2013

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: January 1, 2014 2:51:22 PM CST
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Universe Today's Top 10 (or so) Stories of 2013

 

 

Universe Today's Top 10 (or so) Stories of 2013

by Nancy Atkinson on December 31, 2013

 

2013 has been quite the year in space and astronomy! There have been launches, new missions, new discoveries and surprises. Here's a look back at the big news from the past year, and since we never can limit ourselves to just a "Top 10" here are the "Top 12" stories we've featured on Universe Today in 2013, as chosen by our staff:

This false color composite shows more than half of Earth's disk over the coast of Argentina and the South Atlantic Ocean as the Juno probe slingshotted by on Oct. 9, 2013 for a gravity assisted acceleration to Jupiter. The mosaic was assembled from raw images taken by the Junocam imager. Credit: NASA/JPL/SwRI/MSSS/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

12. Juno Flyby

During a crucial speed boosting slingshot maneuver around Earth on Oct. 9, 2013 NASA's Jupiter-bound Juno probe snapped a dazzling gallery of portraits of our Home Planet over the South American coastline and the Atlantic Ocean. However, an unexpected glitch during the "do or die" fly-by sent the spacecraft into 'safe mode' and delayed the transmission of most of the raw imagery and other science observations while mission controllers worked hastily to analyze the problem. But five days later engineers finally recouped Juno and it's been smooth sailing ever since.
"Juno is fully operational and on its way to Jupiter," Juno principal investigator Scott Bolton told Universe Today's Ken Kremer. "We are completely out of safe mode!"

Read more here and here.

NASA faces the curtaillment of many jobs and services during a government shutdown including website updates. Image credit: (and with thanks) Heather Archuletta.

11. The US Government and NASA shutdown

Due to budgetary disagreements in Congress, the United States federal government began a shutdown on Oct. 1, 2013 that affected all government agencies and an untold number of government contractors. During the shutdown, which lasted for 16 days, about 97% of NASA's 18,000 employees were off the job. NASA's websites were pulled, all the NASA-associated Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus and other social media accounts went dark and NASA Television has also ceased broadcasting.

Thankfully, NASA's MAVEN Mars orbiter was granted 'emergency exemption' to resume processing for its launch, (otherwise, the launch may have been delayed for two years) and the mission launched successfully on Nov. 18.

Read more about the government shutdown here and here.

The full mosaic from the Cassini imaging team of Saturn on July 19, 2013… the "Day the Earth Smiled"

10. Cassini Takes a Picture of Earth from Saturn's orbit:

This summer, for the first time ever, the world was informed that its picture was going to be taken from nearly a billion miles away as the Cassini spacecraft captured images of Saturn in eclipse on July 19. On that day we were asked to take a moment and smile and wave at Saturn, from wherever we were, because the faint light from our planet would be captured by Cassini's camera, shielded by Saturn from the harsh glare of the Sun.

This was no simple point-and-click. Over 320 images were captured by Cassini on July 19 over a period of four hours, and this mosaic was assembled from 141 of those images. Because the spacecraft, Saturn, and its moons were all in constant motion during that time, affecting not only positions but also levels of illumination, imaging specialists had to adjust for that to create the single image you see above. So while all elements may not be precisely where they were at the same moment in time, the final result is no less stunning.

Read more about it here.

9. Commercial space takes off

It was a big year for commercial space. SpaceX successfully launched their Dragon capsule on a second resupply mission to the International Space Station in March. The launch, rocket stage and spacecraft separations went perfectly, but the Dragon experienced an unexpected failure in the propulsion system that would bring it to the ISS. But SpaceX — with some help from the Air Force — saved Dragon from doom, and the resupply mission went off spectacularly. You can read about what's ahead in 2014 for the human-rated Dragon here. SpaceX also launched their next generation Falcon 9, and continued their work on the Grasshopper.

In September, Orbital Sciences launched their Cygnus spacecraft for their first resupply mission to the ISS, with great success.

Portion of 1st panorama around Chang'e-3 landing site showing China's Yutu rover leaving tracks in the lunar soil as it drives across the Moon's surface on Dec. 15, 2013. Images taken by Chang'e-3 lander following Dec. 14 touchdown. Panoramic view was created from screen shots of a news video assembled into a mosaic. Credit: CNSA/CCTV/screenshot mosaics & processing by Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer

8. India and China launch planetary missions

China scored success with the successful touchdown of the ambitious Chang'e-3 probe with the 'Yutu' rover on the surface of the Moon on Dec. 14, 2013. This was China's first ever attempt to conduct a landing on another planetary body, and was the first landing on the Moon by any entity in nearly four decades.

In November, India's first ever Mars probe Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) blasted from Earth for a rendezvous with the Red Planet on September 24, 2014 – where it will study the atmosphere and sniff for signals of methane. Read more here.

An unfortunate frog at the launch of LADEE from the Wallops Island Flight Facility in Virginia on September 6, 2013. Credit NASA/Wallops/Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport.

7. NASA launches Missions to Mars and the Moon: MAVEN, LADEE

NASA's latest mission to the Moon, LADEE, launched from Wallops Island in Virginia on September 6, lighting up the sky along the US East Coast, allowing millions to see the Minotaur V rocket's brilliance with their own eyes, cheering the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer as it sailed to orbit. A frog made headlines as it ended up being flung into the air during the launch. LADEE successfully entered lunar orbit on Oct. 6 amidst the government shutdown

NASA's Mars bound MAVEN spacecraft launches atop Atlas V booster at 1:28 p.m. EST from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Nov. 18, 2013. Image taken from the roof of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com

NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) space probe thundered to space on Nov. 18 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 41 on an Atlas V rocket. MAVEN's purpose is to answer key questions about the evolution of Mars, its geology and the potential for the evolution of life.

"MAVEN is an astrobiology mission," says Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN's Principal Investigator.
Read more about MAVEN's launch here.

Rendering showing the location and size of water vapor plumes coming from Europa's south pole.

6. Europa has Water Plumes

It's been known since 2005 that Saturn's moon Enceladus has geysers spewing ice and dust. Now, thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope we know of another moon with similar jets: Europa, the ever-enigmatic ice-shelled moon of Jupiter. This makes two places in our Solar System where subsurface oceans could be getting sprayed directly into space — and within easy reach of any passing spacecraft.

Coupled with another discovery of clays on Europa's icy surface, like delivered by comet crashes, this makes Europa a top candidate for missions, according to planetary researchers.

Illustration of the Kepler spacecraft (NASA/Kepler mission/Wendy Stenzel)

5. Kepler's Demise… or maybe not

We were given the sad news in May that NASA's exoplanet-hunting Kepler telescope had lost its ability to precisely point toward stars, due to two of four reaction wheels failing, putting its exoplanet search in jeopardy.

But as scientists looked for new ways to use Kepler, they determined it could still be able to seek out potentially-habitable exoplanets around smaller stars. In fact, in its new 2-wheel mode, Kepler might actually open up a whole new territory of exoplanet exploration looking for Earth-sized worlds orbiting white dwarfs.

Curiosity looks to the base of Mount Sharp and the Murray buttes – her ultimate climbing destination – in this mosaic assembled from of navcam camera images from Sol 465, November 2013. Credit: NASA / JPL / MSSS / Marco Di Lorenzo / Ken Kremer- kenkremer.com

4. Curiosity and Opportunity rovers discover habitable zones

This year, NASA's Curiosity rover discovered evidence that an ancient Martian lake had the right chemical ingredients that could have sustained microbial life forms for long periods of time – and that these habitable conditions persisted on the Red Planet until a more recent epoch than previously thought. Additionally, researchers have developed a novel technique allowing Curiosity to accurately date Martian rocks for the first time ever – rather than having to rely on educated guesses based on counting craters.

Meanwhile, the venerable Opportunity rover, going on nearly a decade of roving on Mars, spotted deep stacks of ancient rocks transformed by flowing liquid water eons ago.

Read more about Oppy's discovery here.

Artist's concept of NASA's Voyager spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

3. Voyager I enters interstellar space

In a cosmically historic announcement on September 12, 2013, NASA said the most distant human made object — the Voyager 1 spacecraft — is in interstellar space, the space between the stars. It actually made the transition about a year ago.

While there is a bit of an argument on the semantics of whether Voyager 1 is still inside or outside of our Solar System (it is not farther out than the Oort Cloud — it will take 300 more years reach the Oort cloud and the spacecraft is closer to our Sun than any other star) the plasma environment Voyager 1 now travels through has definitely changed from what comes from our Sun to the plasma that is present in the space between stars.

Another photo of a "greening" Comet ISON taken on Sept. 24 with a 17-inch (43-cm) telescope. Click to enlarge. Credit: Damian Peach

2. Comet Mayhem: ISON's dusty end and Lovejoy's surprise

2013 was billed as the Year of the Comet, as several comets were expected to reach naked-eye visibility. There was Comet C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS, C/2012 F6 Lemmon, and the one everyone was waiting for, Comet C/2012 S1 ISON. ISON ended up not making it past its close encounter with the Sun, but we are now being rewarded with another early morning comet, Comet C/2013 R1 Lovejoy.

Comet R1 Lovejoy imaged on November 10th by astrophtographer Justin Ng. (Credit: Justin Ng).

Frame grab from a video of the Feb. 15, 2013 Russian fireball by Aleksandr Ivanov

1. The Chelyabinsk Meteor

Just as anticipated, on Friday, Feb. 15, asteroid 2012 DA14 passed us by, zipping 27,000 kilometers (17,000 miles) above Earth's surface — well within the ring of geostationary weather and communications satellites that ring our world.

But before that close pass occurred, there was a completely unexpected appearance of a remarkably large meteor in the skies over Chelyabinsk, Russia on the morning of the same day, surprising scientists and causing damage and injuries to the unsuspecting residents of the city. While this event provided insight and information about what happens when an asteroid intersects with Earth, it also highlighted the need for continued research of near-Earth objects (NEOs) — since there are plenty more out there where these came from.
————————————–
That's it for 2013, and here's to more great stories in 2014! We'll continue to do our best to provide coverage on everything space and astronomy-related in the year to come, and thanks to all our readers for your continued support and comments. Also, I want to extend my thanks to our excellent staff of writers who contributed news articles this past year: Jason Major, Elizabeth Howell, Ken Kremer, David Dickinson, Bob King, Tammy Plotner, Shannon Hall, Daniel Majaess, Markus Pössel, Markus Hammonds, Ray Sanders, Scott Lewis, Matthew Francis, John Williams, Susan Murph and Brian Koberlein. Special thanks to our amazing publisher Fraser Cain for his leadership and support (and his great new video series this year!)

Happy New Year!

===============================================================

Fwd: Fifteen Midnights Celebrating the New Year in Space

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: January 1, 2014 2:50:30 PM CST
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Fifteen Midnights Celebrating the New Year in Space

 

 

AmericaSpace

For a nation that explores
January 1st, 2014 

"Fifteen Midnights": Celebrating the New Year in Space

By Ben Evans

 

Bill Shepherd (center) and his Expedition 1 crewmates, Yuri Gidzenko (left) and Sergei Krikalev, juggle oranges during their time aboard the International Space Station. They celebrated both Christmas and the dawn of 2001 in orbit. Photo Credit: NASA

With a naval officer in command of the International Space Station, it might have seemed obvious that New Year's Day 2001 would carry a corresponding nautical tradition. Astronaut Bill Shepherd and his Russian crewmates, Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko, rang in the start of what would turn out to be one of the United States' darkest years with private family conferences and an awareness that a busy few weeks lay ahead. The infant station had just received its first massive set of power-producing solar arrays, and in mid-January it was expected that the STS-98 Shuttle crew would deliver the Destiny laboratory. Spending New Year in orbit is nothing new; since the voyage of Skylab 4 in 1973-74, the transition has been celebrated by Americans and Russians, Japanese and Italians, Dutchmen and Canadians, too. All have passed the time quietly, watching the Home Planet for a glimpse of fireworks and marveling at the accomplishments of one year and sharing hope for the promise of the next.

As 2001 began, Shepherd honored his military heritage by sharing a poem about his ten-weeks-and-counting experience aboard the station. "In long-standing naval tradition," he explained, "the first entry in a ship's log for the New Year is always recorded in prose." And without further ado, he waxed lyrical about his crew's journey, "orbiting high above Earth…traveling our destined journey beyond realm of sea voyage or flight". Shepherd wrote about ringing in a new era as Earth itself revolved, "counting the last thousand years done", for 1 January 2001—although the second year of a new decade—actually marked the official start of the 21st century. Then Shepherd added an interesting observation to his piece: "Fifteen midnights to this night in orbit; a clockwork not of earthly pace". For as he and Krikalev and Gidzenko circled the globe at 17,500 mph (28,100 km/h), they passed through numerous time zones and "saw" numerous New Years.

Since December 2000, a multi-national mix of Americans and Russians, Japanese and Italians, a Dutchman and a Canadian have celebrated Christmas aboard the International Space Station. Photo Credit: NASA

For Shepherd, being in this "new age and place" on such a significant date carried a juxtaposition of the romance and adventure of the past and the scientific and technological possibilities of the future. As he watched "screens dancing shapes in pale glow / We guide her course by electronic pulse" and acknowledged the important role played by his ship's solar panels and stabilizing gyroscopes, he could not escape from the reality that this had few of the navigational devices of old. "On this ship's deck," Shepherd wrote, "sits no helm now / Rudder, sheet and rigs long since gone / but here still – a pull to go places / Beyond lines where sky meets the dawn." Still, his prose was laced with traces of older times: Though star trackers mark Altair and Vega, same as mariners eyed long ago, we are still as wayfinders of knowledge, seeking new things that mankind shall know.

Of course, the International Space Station runs on Greenwich Mean Time, and Shepherd and his men had their own "official" moment of midnight, but the peculiarity of their position induced much fascination back on Earth. In spite of their on-board clocks, they exchanged earlier greetings with mission controllers in Moscow (at GMT+3 hours) and later ones with Houston (at GMT-6 hours).

Shepherd's Expedition 1 crew was by no means the first team of spacefarers to see in the New Year from beyond the veil of Earth. Back in 1973-74, the astronauts of the final Skylab mission—Gerry Carr, Ed Gibson, and Bill Pogue—were six weeks into their 84-day voyage when they endured, rather than enjoyed, the passage of one year into the next. The first part of their flight had left them excessively overworked and exhausted, and on 28 December Carr had been obliged to engage in a heart-to-heart with Mission Control. Two days later, it was agreed that routine chores would be placed on a so-called "shopping list", to be completed when time permitted, and the crew were to be left unhassled during meal times and undisturbed after dinner in the evening. At around the same time, on the 29th, Carr and Gibson performed an EVA to collect micrometeoroid samples and photograph Comet Kohoutek, which was visible in Earth's skies during that winter.

The crew of America's final Skylab mission—from left, Gerry Carr, Ed Gibson and Bill Pogue—were the first humans to spend New Year in space in 1973-74. Photo Credit: NASA

Unfortunately, Kohoutek did not live up to its media billing as the "Comet of the Century", but the spacewalkers were impressed, nonetheless. "We observed a gorgeous thing," recalled Carr in a NASA oral history, "small, faint, but gorgeous." Today, a handful of pencil sketches by Gibson are enshrined in the Smithsonian. On the ground, the excitement was not so intense among the general public. Journalists started calling Kohoutek the "Flop of the Century", ignoring the scientific yield and focusing only on its brightness as a marker of significance, but in reality the fault lay fairly and squarely upon their shoulders; for it was the media which treated Kohoutek as a sure thing, a dead cert, right from the outset. In March 1974, Sky & Telescope glumly told its readers that, whilst professional astronomers were jubilant with their observations, "the general public wondered what had happened to the spectacle promised by the news media".

Over the years, several Soviet and Russian crews spent New Year in orbit. Yuri Romanenko and Georgi Grechko celebrated the dawn of 1978 aboard the Salyut 6 space station, as did Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov from the Mir outpost in 1988. From then onwards, every New Year until 1999 would see at least two humans in orbit on Mir and, with no one aloft at the start of 2000, a resumption of activity from 2001 to the present day aboard the ISS:

•  Aleksandr Volkov, Sergei Krikalev, and Valeri Polyakov at New Year 1989
• Aleksandr Viktorenko and Aleksandr Serebrov at New Year 1990
• Viktor Afanasyev and Musa Manarov at New Year 1991
• Aleksandr Volkov and Sergei Krikalev at New Year 1992
• Anatoli Solovyov and Sergei Avdeyev at New Year 1993
• Vasili Tsibliyev and Aleksandr Serebrov at New Year 1994
• Aleksandr Viktorenko, Yelena Kondakova, and Valeri Polyakov at New Year 1995
• Yuri Gidzenko, Sergei Avdeyev, and Germany's Thomas Reiter at New Year 1996
• Valeri Korzun, Aleksandr Kaleri, and NASA's John Blaha at New Year 1997
• Anatoli Solovyov, Pavel Vinogradov, and NASA's Dave Wolf at New Year 1998
• Gennadi Padalka and Sergei Avdeyev at New Year 1999

Of these times, little detail has emerged about how the transition from one year to the next was celebrated, although the dawn of 1998 was marked by a failure of Mir's motion control system computer. During the recovery process, the entire station—save the base block and the Kvant-1 astrophysics module—was powered down as a conservation measure.

With the departure of Mir's penultimate crew in August 1999, the station was left unoccupied for the transition into 2000 and it was Bill Shepherd's Expedition 1 team who celebrated the next New Year, high above Earth. Since then, each 1 January has seen at least two spacefarers circling the Home Planet. Expedition 4 crewmen Yuri Onufrienko, Carl Walz, and Dan Bursch enjoyed a serene New Year in 2002, relaxing and communicating with family and friends, whilst Expedition 6's Ken Bowersox, Nikolai Budarin, and Don Pettit saw the dawn of 2003 during their official sleep shift. "The first day of the New Year," noted a NASA press release, "involved only a few routine maintenance tasks, exercise, and time off for the crew." Exactly a month later, Columbia was lost during re-entry and NASA was thrust into one of the worst crises in its half-century of existence. Although the ISS would continue to be occupied, thanks to the assured crew return capability offered by Russia's Soyuz craft, the outpost would host only a skeleton staff of two men, each remaining aboard for rotating six-month tours.

New Year's Day 2004 began with new hope for the future expansion of the ISS, as Expedition 8 Commander Mike Foale delivered a "Status of the Station" message, looking ahead to future activities and more distant space exploration. After some quiet celebratory and reflective time, Foale and crewmate Aleksandr Kaleri returned to a full plate of work: the former participating in ongoing research with cell-culture growth studies in a bioreactor and the latter tending to intermittent problems with Elektron oxygen generators. Twelve months later, Expedition 10's Leroy Chiao and Salizhan Sharipov looked earnestly for Earthly fireworks from their orbital perch, then rang in the New Year in response to Mission Control's special rendition of "Auld Lang Syne", before plunging into a hectic program of biomedical and neurovestibular experiments.

By the start of 2006, with Expedition 12 crewmen Bill McArthur and Valeri Tokarev, the Shuttle had returned to flight operations, with an anticipated resumption of construction work expected that same year. And resume it did, for January 2007 saw Expedition 14 increased to a full strength of three members—with Commander Mike Lopez-Alegria joined by Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin and NASA's Suni Williams, the first American woman to celebrate a New Year in space—and physically expanded with new solar arrays and trusses. Although the first week was spent unpacking supplies and installing an oxygen generation system activation kit in the station's Destiny laboratory, the crew enjoyed the year. In one of her journals, Williams wrote that the close proximity between New Year's Day and Russian Orthodox Christmas on 7 January created an excuse for much merriment. "Not sure if you all knew this," she explained, "but the New Year is really a big holiday in Russia and then comes Christmas…as per the Russian Orthodox Church Calendar. We are going to watch a classic Russian New Year's movie this evening, called Irony of Fate." This movie, first released in 1975, mixes screwball comedy with a love story and is traditionally broadcast throughout Russia and many of the former Soviet states every New Year's Day.

Suni Williams became the first American woman to spend both Christmas and New Year away from Earth in 2006-07. Photo Credit: NASA

Another woman was aboard the ISS for the following 1 January in 2008, as Peggy Whitson became the first female commander of the station. Alongside Expedition 16 crewmates Yuri Malenchenko and Dan Tani, she had recently welcomed the new Harmony node and the trio spent much of the day off-duty. Having said this, Whitson and Tani began the New Year with daily readings of sleep experiment data and Malenchenko worked on the environmental control system in the Russian Segment. A year later, in January 2009, another American woman, Sandy Magnus, was aboard the station, with Expedition 18 comrades Mike Fincke and Yuri Lonchakov.

By New Year's Day 2010, the events were turning in busy affairs at the International Space Station, which had reached the capability to house a full crew of up to six long-duration occupants. Soichi Noguchi's arrival aboard Soyuz TMA-18 in December 2009 to join Expedition 22 made him the first Japanese astronaut to spend New Year in space, and Italy also added its name to the tally in December 2010, when Paolo Nespoli launched aboard Soyuz TMA-20, alongside Russian cosmonaut Dmitri Kondratiev and NASA astronaut Catherine "Cady" Coleman. Upon docking, they joined incumbent Expedition 26 crew members Scott Kelly, Aleksandr Kaleri—spending his third New Year in orbit, following previous holiday stints aboard the ISS and Mir—and Oleg Skripochka.

"The holidays are a time where we treasure being with our family and our friends," said Coleman, in a pre-recorded message in the station's Kibo module, as she floated alongside Kelly and Nespoli, "and we think about what we have and how much more we have than others do." Nespoli added that from his vantage point, he saw just one planet and one world, with no borders, and his awareness of the enormity of mankind's responsibility was clear. At the end of 2011, a Dutchman—Expedition 30 crew member Andre Kuipers—added his name to the list of nations whose citizens have rang in the New Year on-orbit. To commemorate the historic event, Kuipers offered his best wishes in his native language on a televised message from the station. And in December 2012, the arrival of Chris Hadfield made Canada the newest member of "the club". New Year's Day 2014 will see six men from Russia, the United States and Japan celebrating the passage of one year into the next. The incumbent Expedition 38 crew consists of Oleg Kotov, Sergei Ryazansky, Mike Hopkins, Mikhail Tyurin, Koichi Wakata and Rick Mastracchio.

Andre Kuipers, who was the first Dutchman to celebrate the New Year in space, works in the station's Quest airlock during his six-and-a-half-month mission. Photo Credit: NASA

However, few can hide the reality that being absent from family and friends at such special times of the year is difficult, even in the splendid isolation of the International Space Station, whose views of the Home Planet are electrifying in their scope and breathtaking in their beauty. "My collateral damage toll," wrote Expedition 30's Don Pettit in a NASA blog, "includes being on-orbit for two Thanksgivings, Christmas, New Year, birthdays, anniversaries, a science fair, school plays, recitals, and Valentine's Day." With his most recent mission—which ended last July after six and a half months—Pettit's toll was steadily rising, although he acquiesced that "with our new internet capability on space station, I can at least send flowers!" He offered the tongue-in-cheek remark in his blog that the real essentials for surviving in the new "wilderness" of space "are not flint, steel and powder…but your credit card number and network login".

Since the dawn of the Space Age, and including the six-strong Expedition 38 team, no fewer than 70 astronauts and cosmonauts have spent New Year away from their loved ones, high above Earth. Among their number are Americans and Russians, Germans and Japanese, Italians and Dutchmen and Canadians. Nine people, including a single American, Don Pettit, have spent two New Years aloft, and a trio of intrepid Russians—Sergei Avdeyev, Sergei Krikalev, and Aleksandr Kaleri—have watched through station windows for Earthbound fireworks on no fewer than three occasions.

Yet there have been other occasions on which missions almost took place over the holiday period. At no stage in its three decades of operational service did a Space Shuttle ever bridge the gulf between the end of one year and the dawn of the next, but in June 2006 NASA began to take steps to at least make it technically possible to do so. Historically, the overarching concern was that the orbiter's 1970s-era General Purpose Computers—both primary and critical backup suites—would need to be reset during the so-called Year-End Rollover (YERO) and this could introduce avionics glitches, a temporary loss of controllability, an absence of navigational updates, and no payload support. More fundamentally, overtime costs associated with personnel running Shuttle operations over the New Year transition were predicted to run into the millions of dollars.

To date, Don Pettit is the only American astronaut to have spent two New Years off the planet. Photo Credit: NASA

One of the first missions significantly affected by the limitations of YERO was STS-116, originally scheduled for a mid-December 2006 launch, whose "window" to reach the International Space Station had already been shortened by a so-called "beta-angle cutout", caused by thermal constraints related to the plane of the outpost's orbit with the Sun. It was determined at the time that if a YERO work-around was not possible, STS-116 (baselined as a 12-day flight) would be restricted to a short, three-day launch window from 14-16 December. Bearing in mind the need for two additional contingency days, to support weather wave-offs, this would produce a landing well in advance of New Year's Eve. If none of the mid-December launch dates could be met, the beta-angle issue would have forced a delay until at least the middle of January 2007.

Evaluations in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL) offered some scope to understand how the orbiter's computers might respond to a YERO event, however, and initial troubleshooting of the main difficulties was completed by the end of October 2006. The STS-116 launch window was extended slightly from 7-17 December, but NASA managers remained unprepared to impose additional risk on an already complex mission. As circumstances transpired, Discovery roared into orbit on 9 December and returned safely to Earth after 13 days, well before Christmas and the New Year. Still, in February 2007, a flight software modification to provide a "YERO Reset" to GMT Day 001 and a recycling of ground systems was approved by NASA and the issue was declared closed. YERO briefly reared its head again in late 2007, when delays to the STS-122 launch made a New Year mission a possibility, but the mission eventually flew in February 2008. None of the year-end missions in the twilight of Shuttle operations—STS-126 in November 2008, STS-129 in November 2009, and STS-133, originally scheduled for November 2010, but postponed until early in the following spring—came into conflict with YERO.

Now, more than two years after the final Shuttle flight, the combined crew of Expedition 38—Commander Oleg Kotov of Russia, NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins and Rick Mastracchio, Japan's Koichi Wakata and Russian cosmonauts Sergei Ryazansky and Mikhail Tyurin—will have ample opportunity over the New Year period to reflect upon their time in the most extraordinary environment ever explored by humans. There will be time to look out for fireworks around the world, during their "Fifteen Midnights", and there will also be time to speak privately to their families.

And therein lies the greatest difficulty. Last New Year, U.S. astronaut Kevin Ford was in command of the ISS. "Probably the biggest thing is asking forgiveness from our families," he said in a pre-flight interview, "but they know how special it is, how long we've waited to do this kind of thing, and they'll forgive us this one time around. When New Year rolls around, I'm going to do my best to be well rested and try to see some fireworks as we pass through those midnight time zones around the planet and see if we can pick up any of that from space."

 

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