If you pay attention to news about space exploration, you may have seen some skeptical stories about NASA’s proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission. (And even if you don’t follow such things, you might well have been dismayed by headlines announcing a “less ambitious asteroid mission” that is “unlikely to get funded.”) This is not another one of them.
I think the asteroid mission is a cool idea, and an important one. I think it will advance the cause of space exploration in several meaningful ways. And it is exactly the kind of medium-scale, focused mission that could revitalize the whole idea of sending humans on grand adventures beyond Earth orbit–if only it can make its way past the naysayers, political opponents, and misguided scientific skeptics who threaten to derail it before it even gets started.
The Obama administration suggested a human voyage to an asteroid as an intermediate step, but even that would be an expensive, multi-month voyage–one that is, again, notably lacking any financial support. Where, then, to go? The Asteroid Redirect Mission answers that question in a novel way. Instead of taking humans to an asteroid, it would do most of the work robotically (and at much lower cost) by bringing the asteroid most of the way to us. Click here. (3/27)
Caltech Space Challenge Yields Ideas About the Future of Space Exploration (Source: Pasadena Star-News)
Five days of collaboration, late-night brain somersaults and strategy clashes culminated Friday in two Caltech presentations that demystified how a potential asteroid-landing mission is a steppingstone toward getting astronauts on Mars.
The 2015 Caltech Space Challenge selected 32 international students, divided them into two teams and asked them to design a mission where astronauts would land on an asteroid both to mine for resources and to demonstrate how the raw materials could be used. Click here. (3/27)
Station After ISS, Work on Joint Mars Project (Source: Sputnik)
In a landmark decision, Russian space agency Roscosmos and its US counterpart NASA have agreed to build a new space station after the current International Space Station (ISS) expires. The operation of the ISS was prolonged until 2024. “We have agreed that Roscosmos and NASA will be working together on the program of a future space station," Roscosmos chief Igor Komarov said during a news conference.
The two agencies will be unifying their standards and systems of manned space programs, according to Komarov. “This is very important to future missions and stations.” The ISS life cycle was to expire in 2020. “Under the ISS program the door will be open to other participants,” Komarov told reporters. The next goal for the two agencies is a joint mission to Mars, NASA chief Charles Bolden told journalists. (3/28)
NASA Says No Plans for ISS Replacement with Russia (Source: Space News)
NASA said it welcomed a Russian commitment to continue operations of the ISS beyond 2020, but indicated there were no firm plans to work together on a successor space station. The agency responded to comments made by the head of Roscosmos, Igor Komarov, earlier in the day that suggested the two space agencies had not only agreed to extend operations of the ISS to 2024, but also to replace the ISS with a new station of some kind after 2024. (3/28)
Dark Matter is Apparently ‘Darker’ Than We Thought (Source: Washington Post)
A new study suggests that dark matter might be able to zip through the universe without slowing or dragging because particles of it don't even interact with each other. Based on what we can observe about the universe, galaxies should be tearing themselves apart. That's where so-called dark matter comes in: It's a term for the as-of-yet unobserved matter that must be bulking up cosmos, giving galaxies the gravity they need to spin at the rates they do without falling to pieces.
But even though we haven't caught dark matter (so named because it doesn't interact with light the way normal matter does -- not absorbing or reflecting it -- though it does bend light with a weird lensing effect) in a straightforward observation, scientists can learn about it based on the effects it has on more typical, observable forms of matter.
In this study, researchers looked at galaxy clusters (big groupings of galaxies that stick together) to study how dark matter might behave when galaxies collide with each other. In watching 72 galactic showdowns, Harvey and his colleagues found that dark matter didn't slow down when clusters collided. That was unexpected. Dark matter (whatever it is) had to be hitting other dark matter en route, but these unseen particles weren't showing any evidence of dragging against each other. (3/27)
Delta 4 Rocket Evolving to Upgraded Main Engine (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
When the next Delta 4 rocket flies in July, as well as all future ones to come, the enhanced RS-68A main engine will power the boosters off the launch pad. This week’s successful Delta 4 launch that put a new GPS satellite into orbit marked the final launch of the original RS-68 model engine. (3/27)
Mars Rover Landing Zone Scars Have Curiously Darkened (Source: Discovery)
When NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity touched down inside Gale Crater in August 2012, it did so in dramatic fashion. In the final stages of its daring descent, the rover’s rocket-powered landing platform — known as a sky crane — lit up and blasted the dusty surface, carving out darkened divots before separating from the rover and flying out of harms way.
Over the months and years after landing, the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on board NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been keeping track of changes around Curiosity’s landing zone (named “Bradbury Landing”), the crash site of the sky crane and the parachute-endowed back-shell that slowed the rover’s entry into the Martian atmosphere.
After disturbing the ruddy regolith on the Martian surface, usually, over time, the darkened area is expected to fade, slowly returning to its natural state. But recent HiRISE imagery of four components of Curiosity’s landing have faded inconsistently, potentially revealing a previously unknown Mars surface dynamic. (3/28)
Scuttling Satellites to Save Space (Source: ESA)
It takes a lot of ingenuity – not to mention a massive quantity of sheer force – to get satellites into orbit. Now space engineers are applying comparable ingenuity to the challenge of getting their missions out of there, too. ESA, working closely with Europe’s satellite builders, will ask industry for new designs to help remove satellites from orbit at the end of their working lives, as well as ‘passivating’ them – making them safer for neighboring missions.
The selected concepts will be evaluated in ESA’s Concurrent Design Facility at the Agency’s ESTEC technical center in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. This interlinked multimedia facility allows a large number of different specialists to work on the same software models at once. (3/26)
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