Space exploration thread

[ScienceRocks]

Secret Space Plane, Air Force's X-37B, Passes Five-Month Mark In Orbit

Secret Space Plane, Air Force's X-37B, Passes Five-Month Mark In Orbit

Posted: 05/30/2013 7:49 am EDT

By: Leonard David
Published: 05/29/2013 07:46 AM EDT on SPACE.com

The U.S. Air Force's robotic X-37B space plane has quietly passed the five-month mark on its latest secret mission in Earth orbit.

The unmanned X-37B spacecraft launched into space atop an Atlas 5 rocket from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Dec. 11, 2012, kicking off a mission whose objectives and payloads are classified.

The winged craft is known as Orbital Test Vehicle-3 (OTV-3), since it is conducting the third mission of the Air Force's X-37B program

 

[ScienceRocks]

NASA — New Solar Electric Ion Propulsion Engine Image Released


May 31, 2013 Nathan


Editor’s note: NASA + solar… big geek win! And holy cow, Batman — look at that wicked NASA image! Try not to drool on your keyboard while you enjoy this Solar Love repost.

NASA recently released a new image of its newest solar-electric propulsion thruster design. The design utilizes xenon ions for propulsion, offering the possibility of a much more efficient means of space travel than chemical rockets can provide. More energy-efficient space travel sounds good, and it’s solar-powered to boot

Read more at NASA -- New Solar Electric Ion Propulsion Engine Image Released | CleanTechnica

 

[ScienceRocks]

It's time to start mining the moon

Lunar mining start-up Moon Express is testing robotic moon landers in advance of a 2015 trial mission. Internet entrepreneur Naveen Jain tells Paul Marks why he founded the firm, and why he's leaving the pursuit of asteroids to rival space miners

How did you go from internet businesses to moon mining?
I'd been looking at how to solve big problems in alternative energy. A lot of the time, innovative ideas don't get very far because we just don't have the affordable material resources here on Earth. Take platinum, for example, which could possibly be used as a catalyst for fuel cells in hydrogen-fuelled cars. It is so expensive here on Earth. Or helium-3, which you could potentially use in future fusion reactors to create a non-radioactive energy source. We got to wondering if we could harvest such materials from space, and specifically from the moon. There are so many riches in space: why not go and get them?

You mentioned platinum and helium-3, what other resources can you mine on the moon?
All the gold, cobalt, iron, palladium, tungsten and so on mined from Earth's crust came from asteroids that hit Earth after its crust cooled. These same types of asteroids bombarded the moon throughout its history, so we can expect the same resources to be available on or near the lunar surface.

Others believe asteroids are the best source for such materials. Why shoot for the moon?
My thinking has always been: why go to an individual asteroid when the moon has been an aggregator of asteroids for billions of years? Look up at the moon on a clear night and all you see are craters where asteroids have struck. And because the moon has no atmosphere, and there is no tectonic activity, all of the asteroid material is still sitting there on the surface. It has already been crushed, so it is all ready to be processed. Moon mining will be mostly open-skimming of surface materials.

Additionally, the lunar gravity is of tremendous benefit because it means equipment used on Earth for gold or platinum mining can be modified to work there.

It's time to start mining the moon - opinion - 31 May 2013 - New Scientist

 

[ScienceRocks]

SpaceX Chief Says Reusable First Stage Will Slash Launch Costs
SpaceX Chief Says Reusable First Stage Will Slash Launch Costs | Reusable Rockets | Space.com

PARIS — SpaceX chairman Elon Musk said the company's Dragon capsule, now used to ferry cargo to the international space station, should be ready to carry astronauts to and from space within two or three years, and that he is more optimistic than ever that a partially reusable rocket will accelerate the reduction in launch costs that SpaceX has already caused with its Falcon 9.

Speaking at the All Things Digital conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., Musk said his ultimate goal with Hawthorne, Calif.-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) has not changed since he founded the company: placing humans on Mars to start a permanent colony there.

For now, Musk said SpaceX's success in building and launching rockets less expensively than established launch service suppliers is "an incremental, not a revolutionary" breakthrough. "Our aspiration is to have a revolutionary breakthrough," he said. [SpaceX's Grasshopper, the Amazing Reusable Rocket (Photos)]

Musk reiterated the origin of the SpaceX production model, saying fuel is only 0.3 percent of the total cost of a rocket, with construction materials accounting for no more than 2 percent of the total cost, which for the Falcon 9 is about $60 million.

Given that the rocket's constituent materials are such a small part of the total vehicle cost, he said: "Clearly people were doing something silly in how they put those materials together. By eliminating those foolish things, we were able to make a rocket for much less."

Musk is the Rockefeller, Westinghouse, etc of the 21st century!

 

[ScienceRocks]

Boeing Commercial Space Taxi and Atlas V Launcher Move Closer to Blastoff

by Ken Kremer on June 1, 2013

Shown here is the integrated CST-100 crew capsule and Atlas V launcher model at NASA's Ames Research Center. The model is a 7 percent model of the Boeing CST-100 spacecraft, launch vehicle adaptor and launch vehicle. Credit: Boeing
Shown here is the integrated CST-100 crew capsule and Atlas V launcher scale model at NASA’s Ames Research Center. The model is a 7 percent model of the Boeing CST-100 spacecraft, launch vehicle adaptor and launch vehicle. Credit: Boeing

The next time that American astronauts launch to space from American soil it will surely be aboard one of the new commercially built “space taxis” currently under development by a trio of American aerospace firms – Boeing, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corp – enabled by seed money from NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP).

Boeing has moved considerably closer towards regaining America’s lost capability to launch humans to space when the firm’s privately built CST-100 crew capsule achieved two key new milestones on the path to blastoff from Florida’s Space Coast.

The CST-100 capsule is designed to carry a crew of up to 7 astronauts on missions to low-Earth orbit (LEO) and the International Space Station (ISS) around the middle of this decade.
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Read more: Boeing Commercial Space Taxi and Atlas V Launcher Move Closer to Blastoff

 

[ScienceRocks]

Astronomers Directly Image Exoplanet Candidate HD95086 b



Astronomers Directly Image Exoplanet Candidate HD95086 b | Astronomy | Sci-News.com

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope have captured an image of a faint object circling the young, dusty, early-type star HD 95086. With a mass of 4 to 5 times greater than Jupiter’s, the object would be the least massive planet to be directly imaged outside the Solar System.

 

[ScienceRocks]

China Heads to Space Again This Month

By CHRIS BUCKLEY

Published: June 3, 2013

HONG KONG — China’s next space mission begins this month when a capsule carrying three astronauts will dock with an orbiting module, a spokesman for the space program said Monday.

The astronauts will be on board a Shenzhou 10 capsule, which will be launched on a rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, the Xinhua news agency reported, citing the spokesman, whom the agency did not name.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/04/world/asia/chinas-next-space-mission-is-this-month.html?_r=0

 

[ScienceRocks]

Europe set for record-breaking space launch

Jun 03, 2013 by Mariette Le Roux

Nearly 40 years ago, European countries worried by US and Soviet dominance of space gave the green light to the first Ariane rocket, a wee launcher capable of hoisting a satellite payload of just 1.8 tonnes—the equivalent mass of two small cars.



On Wednesday, the fifth and mightiest generation of Arianes is set to take a whopping 20.2 tonnes into orbit, a cargo craft the size of a double-decker bus and a record for Europe, proud engineers say.

The payload is the fourth cargo delivery by the European Space Agency (ESA) to the International Space Station (ISS), bringing food, water, oxygen, scientific experiments and special treats to the orbiting crew.

Read more at: Europe set for record-breaking space launch

 

[BlueGin]

Space Weather on Par With Tornado Threat, NASA Chief Says

Severe space weather could be as devastating to the planet as serious tornadoes and other natural disasters, NASA chief Charles Bolden said in a public address Tuesday (June 4).

Bolden spoke before scientists and industry members at the Space Weather Enterprise Forum, which was held at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Auditorium and Science Center in Silver Spring, Md.

The daylong conference aimed to bring together researchers and policymakers to identify how the sun's activity impacts Earth, and the potentially harmful effects of space weather.

Space Weather on Par With Tornado Threat, NASA Chief Says

 

[ScienceRocks]

International team strengthens Big Bang Theory

(Phys.org) —An international team of scientists using the most powerful telescope on Earth has discovered the moments just after the Big Bang happened more like the theory predicts, eliminating a significant discrepancy that troubled physicists for two decades. The discovery will be published in the international journal Astronomy & Astrophysics on June 6.

Read more at: International team strengthens Big Bang Theory

 

[ScienceRocks]

New observations of a 'dust trap' around a young star solve long-standing planet formation mystery

Astronomers using the new Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array have imaged a region around a young star where dust particles can grow by clumping together. This is the first time that such a dust trap has been clearly observed and modeled. It solves a long-standing mystery about how dust particles in discs grow to larger sizes so that they can eventually form comets, planets and other rocky bodies.

Read more at: New observations of a 'dust trap' around a young star solve long-standing planet formation mystery

 

[ScienceRocks]

Second rover finds hint of a life-friendly ancient Mars
Second rover finds hint of a life-friendly ancient Mars | Reuters
By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Fri Jun 7, 2013 8:21pm EDT

(Reuters) - A Martian rock analyzed by NASA's rover Opportunity contains clays formed in non-acidic water, an environment potentially suitable for the chemistry of ancient life to brew.

The solar-powered Opportunity landed on Mars in January 2004 for what was expected to be a 90-day mission to look for signs there was once water. It, and a twin rover, Spirit, which succumbed to the harsh Martian environment three years ago, had both found rocks altered by highly acidic water.

 

[ScienceRocks]

PAH's in Titan's Upper Atmosphere

Prof. Manuel López-Puertas

Observations of Titan's atmosphere made with the VIMS instrument on board the Cassini satellite show a strong limb emission around 3.3 µm at high atmospheric altitudes (above 700 km). This emission exhibits the typical spectral signatures of the strong CH4 bands. A detailed analysis of the spectra reveals, however, an additional strong emission centered at 3.28 µm and peaking at about 950 km. We have untangled this spectral emission and found it produced by large amount of heavy polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH's). I will describe this research and will briefly discuss about the important consequences of this finding on the origin of Titan's main haze layer.

PAH's in Titan's Upper Atmosphere | Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía - CSIC

 

[ScienceRocks]

Saturn's Moon Dione May Have An Underground Ocean

Saturn's Moon Dione May Have An Underground Ocean | Popular Science
A NASA spacecraft has found evidence of geological activity under the surface of the icy moon.

By Rose PastorePosted 06.10.2013 at 4:00 pm0 Comments

Saturn's moon Dione Icy Dione in front of Saturn. The horizontal stripes near the bottom of the image are Saturn's rings. Images taken on Oct. 11, 2005, with blue, green and infrared spectral filters were used to create this color view, which approximates the scene as it would appear to the human eye. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute


A phrase to make your ears perk up: Yet another of Saturn's moons may have "astrobiological potential," NASA scientists have announced. The agency's Cassini spacecraft recently captured evidence that there once was—and may still be—a subterranean ocean on the ringed planet's icy satellite Dione.

The 700-mile-diameter moon is home to a 500-mile mountain called Janiculum Dorsa (see photo below). Images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft show the surface of the moon puckering nearly 0.3 miles under the mountain, a clue that Dione had a subsurface ocean when the mountain formed.

 

[ScienceRocks]

China's Shenzhou 10 launch lifts off, heads for the stars
China's Shenzhou 10 launch lifts off, heads for the stars | DVICE

Colin Druce-McFadden

Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - 11:37am

Ten years after the China's first successful space flight, the Shenzhou 10 spacecraft successfully lifted off this morning. The mission not only marks the end of the nation's first decade in space, but heralds the next era of Chinese space exploration.

The crew of the Shenzhou 10 consists of veteran astronaut and mission commander Nie Haisheng, pilot Zhang Xiaoguang and Wang Yaping, China's second female astronaut. Once docked properly at the Tiangong 1 module — a small space station that has been in orbit since 2011 — Yaping will begin teaching ground-based school children all about space travel. Think of her as the mission's Chris Hadfield.

The mission is not only a learning experience for students, however. The Shenzhou 10 mission will be the third and final round of tests done on space-borne living before China begins building a much larger space station, set to begin operation in 2020. Future crews could use the elbow room, too. The Tiangong 1 module is to date the smallest space station to have ever been in orbit. Check out our gallery below to see images of the Shenzhou 10 launch.

 

[BlueGin]

New Kind of Dark Matter Could Form 'Dark Atoms'

The mysterious dark matter that makes up most of the matter in the universe could be composed, in part, of invisible and nearly intangible counterparts of atoms, protons and electrons, researchers say.

Dark matter is an invisible substance thought to make up five-sixths of all matter in the universe. Scientists inferred the existence of dark matter via its gravitational effects on the movements of stars and galaxies.

Most researchers think dark matter is composed of a new type of particle, one that interacts very weakly at best with all the known forces of the universe save gravity. As such, dark matter can almost never be seen or touched, and rarely even collides with itself.

New Kind of Dark Matter Could Form 'Dark Atoms'

 

[ScienceRocks]

Moon radiation findings may reduce health risks to astronauts

16 hours ago

Space scientists from the University of New Hampshire (UNH) and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) report that data gathered by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) show lighter materials like plastics provide effective shielding against the radiation hazards faced by astronauts during extended space travel. The finding could help reduce health risks to humans on future missions into deep space.

Read more at: Moon radiation findings may reduce health risks to astronauts

 

[ScienceRocks]

Planetary Resources adds exoplanet hunting stretch goal to Kickstarter campaign


By David Szondy

June 12, 2013
Planetary Resources adds exoplanet hunting stretch goal to Kickstarter campaign

Planetary Resources is offering to upgrade an Arkyd 100 satellite for exoplanet hunting if its crowdfunding stretch goal is reached

In May, asteroid mining firm Planetary Resources announced its crowdfunding campaign for one of its Arkyd 100 telescope satellites that backers would be allowed to use for a bit of private space exploration. Having reached over US$860,000 of its $1 million goal on Wednesday, Planetary Resources is upping the ante by offering to upgrade the satellite for exoplanet hunting if pledges reach $2 million before the campaign ends on May 30.

Planetary Resources says that it wants to help fill the gap left by the recent failure of NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler space telescope, which went out of commission in May after a gyro failure. If the $2 million mark is met, Planetary Resources will team with MIT exoplanet researchers and enhance an Arkyd’s stability systems, so it will be suitable for exoplanet work.

Then satellite time will be dedicated to monitoring candidate star systems for transiting exoplanets, which involves recording the dip in a star’s light intensity as a planet passes in front of it, or studying gravity microlensing, which uses the distortion of light caused by the mass of a star and its planets to detect the latter.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Atmosphere of Super-Earth Exoplanet Observed for First Time by Two Japanese Telescopes
Sunny super-Earth? Atmosphere of super-Earth exoplanet observed for time first by two Japanese telescopes

A research team led by Akihiko Fukui (NAOJ), Norio Narita (NAOJ) and Kenji Kuroda (the University of Tokyo) observed the atmosphere of super-Earth "GJ3470b" for the first time using two telescopes at OAO (Okayama Astrophysical Observatory, NAOJ). This super-Earth is an exoplanet, having only about 14 times the mass of our home planet, and it is the second lightest one among already-surveyed exoplanets. The observational data revealed that this planet is highly likely to NOT be covered by thick clouds.

The research team performed highly accurate observations on the transit of exoplanet GJ3470b using the Near-Infrared Imager/Spectrograph (ISLE) camera mounted on the 188cm reflecting telescope and three visible light cameras on Multicolor Imaging Telescopes for Survey and Monstrous Explosions (MITSuME) telescope, all belonging to OAO, simultaneously. They measured the brightness dropping rates of the stars in 4 colors (from visible to near infrared). The observations enabled to estimate each radius by color for the planet. As a result, the radius derived from near infrared radiation (1.3 micrometer wavelength) is about 6% shorter than that from visible light. The difference of radii between colors probably is the reflection of the atmospheric characteristics of the planet. When the light from the primary star is transmitted through the thick atmosphere of the planet, certain wavelengths of light are absorbed or scattered by atmospheric molecules, which could cause the difference of apparent radii for each observation wavelength.

This would be ONE hell of a big super earth terrestrial planet.

 

[ScienceRocks]

China astronauts enter space module (Update)

3 hours ago
June 11, 2013

China's Shenzhou-10 rocket blasts off from the Jiuquan space centre in the Gobi Desert, in Jiuquan, northwest China's Gansu province, on June 11, 2013. The spacecraft on Thursday carried out a successful docking, according to state media.
Three Chinese astronauts Thursday entered a space module after carrying out a successful docking manoeuvre, state media said, two days after the launch of the country's longest manned space mission.

The astronauts entered the Tiangong-1 space module at 0817 GMT, almost three hours after their spacecraft Shenzhou-10 had linked up with the space laboratory in an "automated docking", Xinhua said, citing the Beijing Aerospace Control Center.

Read more at: China astronauts enter space module (Update)