Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 138

Russia decided it was going to test an anti-satellite weapon on one of its own satellites. The test was a success as the satellite was sufficiently destroyed.

However, the debris from the now-destroyed satellite has been deemed dangerous by NASA, with officials coming out against Russia's "irresponsible" behavior. An audio recording has surfaced of a conversation between the International Space Station crew and on-ground support, which warned them that the crew was required to take shelter in SpaceX Crew Dragon. Mission control can be heard informing Raja Chari, Commander of the Crew-3 mission, of the incoming "satellite break up".

Chari said, "If that's more than half an hour, then I think we'll stay suited and potentially come back home if Dragon takes a hit". As previously mentioned, NASA and the United States Military have condemned the actions of Russia, and only recently did Russia respond, with Russia's Ministry of Defense defending the test. Minister-general of the army, Sergei Shoigu commented on the space debris having the potential to pose a threat to future space activities, "the resulting fragments do not pose any threat to space activities".

Space CEO Elon Musk is reportedly scheduled to drop an update for the company's upcoming next-generation launch vehicle - Starship.

Reports indicate that Musk will be speaking at the National Academies' first virtual Space Studies Board that's scheduled for 6 pm EST on November 17th. The event will be streamed live and will no doubt cover the extensive progress made constructing Starship and the regulatory approval waiting process that has caused the launch to be delayed.

During this waiting period, the company has been performing numerous tests of Starship SN20, and now it's nearing the end of the process as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) stated it would have its review of the environmental impacts of the Starbase launch site completed by the end of the year. Recently, Musk said that SpaceX's next-generation engines that will take humans "multi-planetary" won't be called Raptor, more on that here.

A new post has appeared on NASA's official Twitter account for its Perseverance rover that is currently collecting new soil samples on Mars.

Perseverance has officially collected its third sample of Martian soil, and this time around, the rover has collected something unexpected that has sparked hypotheses to fly among NASA scientists. Images of the sample collection have been posted to the Perseverance Twitter account, which is captioned, "My latest sample is from a rock loaded with the greenish mineral olivine". However, researchers are yet to find out how the mineral got there.

Futurism reports that olivine minerals are found on Earth in solidified places of lava or magma. NASA scientists are attempting to find a correlation between olivine minerals and carbonates, which form when carbon dioxide interacts with water. As for this sample of olivine, we will have to wait for an explanation for how it got there as NASA scientists work their magic analyzing data and throwing hypotheses around. The Perseverance team will undoubtedly update us with an answer in the coming weeks/months.

Ahead of the Thanksgiving celebrations, AccuWeather forecasters have warned of an incoming storm that is expected to cause major travel delays across certain parts of the US.

Forecasters have predicted that two major weather patterns could cause extreme delays in parts of the Midwest and Northeast, as a wintry storm is developing over the central Plains on Sunday, and another storm that will spawn out of the Atlantic Coast one to two days later. AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jon Porter said, "We could be looking at a huge mess and a real wrench in holiday travel."

Reports state that the first storm will begin brewing over the central Plains on Sunday and will then move northeast to reach Great Lakes by Monday. It will then move into central Ontario or western Quebec on Tuesday, and all throughout its journey AccuWeather reports, "It is likely to strengthen rapidly enough to be classified as a bomb cyclone as the central pressure of the storm could plummet 0.71 of an inch of mercury (24 millibars) within 24 hours."

NASA is getting very close to the launch of its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which involves slamming a spacecraft directly into an asteroid to change its orbit.

A small group of NASA experts has taken to Reddit AMA to answer some burning questions from the public, and one of the questions posed was, "Are you at all worried that the collision will cause pieces of the asteroid to break off and disperse into the atmosphere and create new hazards?". For those that don't know, NASA will be sending a small spacecraft around the size of a large vending machine directly towards an asteroid around the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The spacecraft will be traveling at 15,000 mph at the time of its impact, and NASA expects that it will change the orbit of the asteroid by more than 1%. It should be noted that Didymos is orbiting a larger asteroid called Dimorpohos and will be 6.7 million miles away at the time of impact. The idea behind DART is to demonstrate if a kinetic impactor (the spacecraft) is a sufficient method of deflecting an asteroid that is on course to hit Earth.

Six NASA experts have taken to Reddit for an Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) regarding asteroids, Earth, and the agency's upcoming Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission.

NASA's upcoming DART mission is the first planetary defense mission from the agency and will involve colliding a small spacecraft around the size of a vending machine into a small asteroid around the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza. The asteroid that is the target is orbiting a larger asteroid, and NASA's goal of the mission is to see if it's possible to alter the orbit of the smaller asteroid. The results from this mission will pave the way forward for planetary defense strategies.

One of the questions that were posed to the six participants was, "What is the probability (mathematical) of a moderate size asteroid impact in the next 100 years?". NASA's Marina Brozovic, an asteroid scientist at JPL, answered and said that the agency doesn't know of any objects that are several hundred meters (200 meters is 656 feet) in size that has a chance of impacting Earth. Additionally, Brozovic reminds everyone that any object smaller than about 100 feet in size is unlikely to reach the ground due to our atmosphere.

NASA has answered the question "Is NASA really crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid?" with a new video on its YouTube channel.

The space agency has posted a new video that is a part of its "We Asked a NASA Expert" weekly series that tackles some of NASA's most popular questions. This week, NASA Planetary Expert Nancy Chabot answers the question regarding the spacecraft asteroid collision, saying, "Yes, NASA really is smashing a spacecraft into an asteroid. That spacecraft is DART, Double Asteroid Redirection Test".

Chabot goes on to explain that the spacecraft is about the size of a vending machine and will be colliding with an asteroid around the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza. The planetary expert explains that the goal of the mission isn't to destroy the asteroid but to see if its possible to slightly change its orbit, which would then knock it off its original course. Knowing if this is possible will allow NASA to plan a strategy around deflecting an asteroid that's on a collision course with Earth years before impact.

Multiple NASA experts have taken to Reddit to answer some questions from the public about asteroids, a part of NASA's upcoming DART mission.

The Reddit AMA featured six NASA experts in several different fields, but all a part of the agency's upcoming launch of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which involves a NASA spacecraft slamming into an asteroid to knock it off course. One of the questions that NASA received was, "What's the minimum time it'll take to notice an asteroid heading towards earth?".

Lance Benner, lead for NASA's asteroid radar research program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) answered and wrote that the agency is looking for asteroids that are on route to hit Earth with years to decades of advance notice, but are also monitoring any small asteroids that are going to impact Earth. However, the larger and more dangerous asteroids are regularly found, but are very far away from Earth and pose no danger.

As the search for life on mars continues, formations taking on a similar appearance to fossils have been found.

Unfortunately, they were likely created by various non-biological chemical processes mimicking biological sources. The processes that created these false fossils produce deposits that resemble bacterial cells and carbon-based molecules.

During a period are 3.6 to 4 billion years ago, Mars would have been habitable for some life, as valleys and sedimentary rocks on the surface indicate water was once widely available. Despite this, concrete evidence of life has yet to be discovered.

The Leonids meteor shower are visible annually throughout most of November, with 2014 onward having some visibility between the 6th and 30th of November each year.

Since 2016, the peak has occurred on November 17th. However, in recent years, the number of meteors visible at the peak of the Leonids is estimated between 10-15 per hour by a single observer under ideal conditions. This year's relatively poor turnout is due partly to the approaching full moon, which is due on November 19th, lighting up the night sky and obscuring the shower.

The Leonids result from the debris left by the comet Tempel-Tuttle, which completes an orbit of the Sun every 33 years. The comet's orbital path intersects that of the Earth around the Sun, and each year as the Earth passes through the intersection point, meteors left over from the comet are visible in the shower.

A new study has been published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, where researchers predicted the zoonotic disease transmission potential of 5,400 mammalian species.

Identifying high-risk species has been limited by the available data on the cell receptor ACE2, allowing SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) to bind with a host cell and infect it. This receptor is found in all major vertebrate groups, and although likely present in all vertebrates, has only been sequenced for 326 species.

By combining the available data on ACE2 with the biological traits of the 5,400 mammals chosen, a machine learning model developed by the research team could identify species with high zoonotic capacity, specifically the ability to contract and transmit SARS-CoV-2 to humans and other animal species.

The vision of Orbit Fab is to create the first Gas Stations in Space™, and it has announced a collaboration with Dawn Aerospace, a space-transportation company, to provide an on-orbit refueling service to satellites utilizing nitrous oxide (N2O) and propylene (C3H6).

Orbit Fab has developed a fuel port designated the Rapidly Attachable Fluid Transfer Interface, or RAFTI. Recently made available under an open license, it is an option available for government and commercial satellites and will be available for Dawn Aerospace customers midway through 2022.

Dawn produces propulsion systems for use in space utilizing green propellants, including nitrous oxide and propylene, gases which are readily available from domestic suppliers. The viability of Dawn's technology has been proven in CubeSats and other small satellites, and Dawn propulsion systems have flown aboard Vega, Falcon 9, and Soyuz rockets.

Fifty-three new Starlink satellites have been successfully launched using a Falcon 9 rocket, bringing the total number of Starlink satellites launched to 1844.

The Falcon 9 rocket was launched from Space Launch Complex 40 Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, with lift-off at 7:19 a.m. EST (12:19 UTC) on November 13th, 2021. Due to poor weather conditions, the mission had been delayed from its initially scheduled departure the day prior.

The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket was core B1058, in use for the ninth time after a turnaround of 182 days from its previous flight. The core's first flight was on May 30th, 2020, almost a year and a half lifetime so far. It successfully landed on SpaceX's drone ship "Just Read the Instructions" after separating from the second stage 2.5 minutes into the flight.

'Oumuamua is a large, cigar-shaped object that was first identified in October 2017, exiting our solar system at nearly 57,000 mph (92,000 km/h), indicating it could not have originated in our solar system.

Since then, scientists have tried to explain its origin and composition, with two papers published in March by Arizona State University astrophysicists suggesting it was made of nitrogen ice. However, a new paper has been published by Harvard astrophysicists in opposition to this suggestion. Astronomers have been unable to explain the source of its speed, as it shows no signs of propellant gases leaving it. The gravitational pull of the Sun is also insufficient to have accelerated it to the speeds that have slingshotted 'Oumuamua in and out of the solar system.

Alan Jackson and Steven Desch of the Arizona State University suggested that 'Oumuamua was likely a large chunk of nitrogen ice, having broken off of a planet similar to Pluto outside of our solar system. Given Pluto is 98% solid nitrogen, there likely are many similar planets, exo-Plutos, outside of our solar system from which 'Oumuamua may have broken off.

SpaceX has been performing tests for its first upcoming orbital test launch of Starship. However, the company has yet to secure a launch date as it has been waiting for regulatory approval from the FAA.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) began an environmental assessment on SpaceX's orbital launch activities at its launch facility called Starbase, located close to the South Texas village of Boca Chica. SpaceX has been patiently waiting for the environmental assessment to be completed and regulatory approval to be granted for the launch of Starship. However, the FAA didn't say when the assessment would be completed until now, as the regulator estimated in an update that it would be completed by December 31, 2021.

For those who don't know the significance of Starship, the launch vehicle is comprised of two fully reuseable components, a large first-stage booster called Super Heavy that stands at 230 ft, and the spacecraft itself called Starship, which stands at 160 ft. Starship is designed to take humans to the Moon and eventually to Mars, as NASA has selected the vehicle to take astronauts back to the Moon as a part of the agency's Artemis program.

Since late October, NASA and the European Space Agency's (ESA) Hubble Space Telescope has been mostly out-of-order as it experienced a glitch.

Engineers found that the glitch has something to do with the synchronization of its internal communications, and as a result of the failure to sync correctly, the space telescope puts all of its instruments into safety mode to prevent any potential damage that could be caused.

On November 7, the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) was brought back online, and now according to NASA, "the Hubble team has identified near-term changes that could be made to how the instruments monitor and respond to missed synchronization messages, as well as to how the payload computer monitors the instruments." Adding, "This would allow science operations to continue even if several missed messages occur. The team has also continued analyzing the instrument flight software to verify that all possible solutions would be safe for the instruments."

Russia decided it was going to test out of one of its anti-satellite weapons on one of its own satellites. The results have now sparked a debate.

Russia tested an anti-satellite missile on Monday, November 15, on a defunct satellite called Cosmos-1408, which, as you can probably imagine, resulted in an explosion and many new space debris created. Numberica Corp, a Colorado-based company that tracks space debris, has partnered with Slingshot Aerospace on Twitter to publish images and video of the debris caused by the destruction of Cosmos-1408.

Reports indicate that more than 1,500 new trackable space debris were found, with an unknown amount of debris too small to be tracked. The US Military, as well as NASA, have condemned the actions by Russia to test an anti-satellite weapon as they claim the space debris could pose a threat to astronauts living on the International Space Station (ISS). However, Russia has since defended its decision by saying that the resulting fragments do not pose any threat to space activities".

Russia recently tested an anti-satellite weapon that caused a large swath of space debris that has been subject to heavy debate.

The United States condemned the event, describing it as "dangerous and irresponsible behavior" that can potentially jeopardize the long-term sustainability of space. The criticism came from NASA's head Bill Nelson, as well as Ned Price, a State Department spokesperson, who said that the destruction of one of Russia satellites at the hand of Russia has caused a significant increase in risk for astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and any human spaceflight activities.

Now, Russia's Ministry of Defence has issued a statement defending its decision to test the anti-satellite weapon and create space debris. According to the minister-general of the army, Sergei Shoigu said, "the resulting fragments do not pose any threat to space activities". However, experts have said that the cloud of debris, which consists of more than 1,500 trackable pieces, could pose a threat for years to come. Roscosmos Twitter wrote on Monday that the debris cloud "has moved away from the ISS orbit", referring to the ISS orbiting Earth at around 250 miles and the debris cloud being tracked to 273 to 323 miles. Rocosmos wrote, "the station is in the green zone."

SpaceX is currently gearing up for its first orbital test of Starship, its vehicle that is set to be the transportation between the Moon and Mars.

SpaceX is in full testing mode at the moment in preparation for Starship's first orbital test flight that will take the rocket higher than it ever has before. Starship is comprised of three main parts, the 160 ft spacecraft named Starship, a 230 ft tall booster named Super Heavy, and its 59 ft tall and 30 ft wide payload fairing. Recently, SpaceX conducted a 6-engine static fire test of Starship, showcasing the tremendous power of its six Raptor engines. To see incredible images of that firing test, check out this link here.

As SpaceX wait for approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to conduct the first orbital test of Starship, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has published an awesome image of under Super Heavy with the caption "12 million pounds of thrust at liftoff". In response to this image, a Twitter user said, "Can't wait for Raptor 2, it's still a rat's nest up there", which is in reference to the exposed Raptor engines that can be seen in the image.

NASA's Curiosity rover is acquiring data that will be used to make sure future astronauts have a safe environment on the surface of Mars.

Curiosity is equipped with an instrument called a Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD), and this instrument is designed to measure the amount of radiation detected from galactic cosmic rays, which are particles that can be traced back to exploding stars. These galactic cosmic rays form what is called "background radiation", and due to Mars not having a protective magnetic field to repel this radiation, these galactic cosmic rays will be especially harmful to astronauts on Mars' surface.

A new paper published in JGR Planets detailed data acquired by Curiosity when it was parked against a cliff called Murray Buttes from September 9 to 21 in 2016. During this time frame, RAD recorded a 4% decrease in overall radiation exposure and a 7.5% decrease in neutral particle radiation, which also includes neutrons that can penetrate rock and are very harmful to human health. Researchers attributed these drops to the location of the rover. Bent Ehresmann of the Southwest Research Institute, lead author of the paper, said, "We've been waiting a long time for the right conditions to get these results, which are critical to ensure the accuracy of our computer models."