The Solar Impulse flight to Le Bourget, where it will be the attraction of the show

Solar Impulse logo.


June 11, 2011

Solar Impulse, a solar airplane pilot, was found Saturday afternoon a favorable weather window to fly out of Brussels to go to Le Bourget, outside Paris, where he will be the guest of honor of the 49th International Aerospace Exhibition and space.

Solar Impulse departure from Brussels

The aircraft took off smoothly at 6:37 p.m. at the airport of Brussels-National, in a sky still partly cloudy, according to pictures posted on the website of the Solar Impulse (http://www.solarimpulse.com), on which the flight can be Live Coverage.

The rain and strong wind had prevented the aircraft designed by the Swiss psychiatrist and balloonist Bertrand Piccard to air as scheduled Saturday morning but the weather cleared in Brussels in the afternoon.

It is only the second international flight in its young history.

Video taken between Neufvilles and Montignies-les-Lens

This giant dragonfly, the size of an Airbus, but the weight of a car, can only fly if the wind blows on the track to less than 7 knots (about 13 km / h, ie).

The aircraft to climb to about 2,500 meters above sea level and will drive south-west. During his first hours of flight, the Solar Impulse can still store a little solar energy before sunset and rely on its batteries recharged in the sun Friday.

As a precaution, his teams have preferred to plan his arrival at Le Bourget as soon as possible to be certain to be there when the show opens, June 20

For the first time, organizers of the high mass of the aircraft have appointed a special guest, not least because this prototype, whose wings are covered with 12,000 solar cells, sits on the tarmac in the middle of the stars Aviation as the new A380 or Boeing 747-8.

The prototype Solar Impulse HB-SIA has a wingspan comparable to that of an Airbus A340

And if the weather allows, the Solar Impulse should fly every day of this show, which opens its doors to the public from June 24 to 26

Nevertheless, for its creators, the Solar Impulse is not intended for commercial application. The goal is for them to demonstrate technology solutions to the challenges of today and reach as many people as possible, "explained Bertrand Piccard, famous for having been around the world hot air balloon and from a family of explorers famous.

If an aircraft is capable of flying day and night without fuel, so nobody can say we can not use this system for cars, heating, air conditioning, etc.., "He pleaded. We must return to a search for solutions (...) and a pioneering spirit, he said, eyes sparkling.

The Solar Impulse landed at Brussels on May 13 after taking off thirteen hours earlier from the military airfield of Payerne Switzerland, completing its first international flight.

The solar powered aircraft Solar Impulse takeoff at Brussels, 11 June 2011

The aircraft with a wingspan of 64 meters weighs only 1.6 tons. He had already entered the history of aviation in ensuring flight first 24 hours without interruption and only propelled by solar panels and batteries in July 2010.

First failure for Solar Impulse has had to turn back in flight

The experimental solar plane Solar Impulse, which was to reach Le Bourget airport near Paris, was the first defeat of his young life Saturday after a series of problems in flight, forcing him to put the cap on Brussels to where he had left three hours earlier.

The aircraft, which took off at 6:37 p.m. at the airport of Brussels-National, had to turn back to 9:39 p.m. (7:39 p.m. GMT) shortly after the French town of Bavay (North), a few kilometers from the Belgian border, has told AFP spokeswoman of Solar Impulse. The announcement came after an article published on the blog of the adventure reporting difficulties in series.

There is no airstrip intermediary such as batteries and power decreased, we preferred to turn not to endanger the life of the pilot, Andre Borschberg, said the spokesman. But the plane will try again next week to reach Le Bourget, as soon as a window weather permits, she said. The Solar Impulse is the guest of honor of the 49th Paris Air Show, scheduled to open June 20. Saturday night, the pilot had to deal with such a big headwind, "she said.

The pilot was unable to return including the landing gear by hand, through 80 revolutions of the crank. Consequently, the landing gear remained extended, which slows the aircraft and increases energy expenditure, the team wrote this revolutionary aircraft.

Andre Borschberg was also forced to fly lower than expected due to cloud cover at 2,500 feet instead of 3500, it said on the blog. At first the landing gear was not damaged but it will be confirmed at the landing of the aircraft, said the spokesman. The rain and strong wind had prevented the aircraft designed by the Swiss psychiatrist and balloonist Bertrand Piccard to the air Saturday morning. But the weather cleared on Brussels in the afternoon.

We knew that the ultimate moment to take off was 18.30. However, we left at 6:36 p.m., just at the limit. We had some turbulence in the first two hours, which cost energy. (...) If we took off an hour earlier, it was not a problem to reach Le Bourget, said his side Raymond Clerc, head of mission at the site.

We have not had a mechanical problem, but the battery status, speed and the wind does not allow us to go to Paris, he added. This is the first failure for this prototype aircraft that entered the history of aviation in July 2010 providing a first flight of 24 hours without interruption and only propelled by solar panels and batteries.

The prototype, whose wings feed four electric motors of an output of 10 hp each, were then flown over Switzerland at an altitude of 150-300 m and a speed of 50 km / h.

The next goal of this project of 100 million Swiss francs (75 million) is to build a second prototype, larger and with better performance. This new device should be from 2013 an overview of the Atlantic, at which seasoned drivers will join the experiment.

Solar Impulse at Duebendorf, Switzerland

The ultimate goal of the team based in Duebendorf, Switzerland, is attempting a world tour in five steps to 2013 or 2014.

Images, Video, Text, Credits: AFP / KEYSTONE / Video: Internet user unidentified / Translation: Orbiter.ch.

Solar Impulse website, visit. http://www.solarimpulse.com


Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Nearby Galaxy Boasts Two Monster Black Holes, Both Active

NASA - SWIFT Mission patch.

06.10.11

A study using NASA's Swift satellite and the Chandra X-ray Observatory has found a second supersized black hole at the heart of an unusual nearby galaxy already known to be sporting one.

The galaxy, which is known as Markarian 739 or NGC 3758, lies 425 million light-years away toward the constellation Leo. Only about 11,000 light-years separate the two cores, each of which contains a black hole gorging on infalling gas. The study will appear in a forthcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Video above: Zoom into Markarian 739, a nearby galaxy hosting two monster black holes. Using NASA's Swift and Chandra, astronomers have shown that both black holes are producing energy as gas falls into them. The object is only the second-known binary active galactic nucleus within half-a-billion light-years. (No audio. Animation begins with visible light view of Markarian 739 and transitions into an artistic rendering of the two black holes. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center).

"At the hearts of most large galaxies, including our own Milky Way, lies a supermassive black hole weighing millions of times the sun's mass," said Michael Koss, the study's lead author at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and the University of Maryland in College Park (UMCP). "Some of them radiate billions of times as much energy as the sun."

Astronomers refer to galaxy centers exhibiting such intense emission as active galactic nuclei (AGN). Yet as common as monster black holes are, only about one percent of them are currently powerful AGN. Binary AGN are rarer still: Markarian 739 is only the second identified within half a billion light-years.

Many scientists think that disruptive events like galaxy collisions trigger AGN to switch on by sending large amounts of gas toward the black hole. As the gas spirals inward, it becomes extremely hot and radiates huge amounts of energy.

Since 2004, the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) aboard Swift has been mapping high-energy X-ray sources all around the sky. The survey is sensitive to AGN up to 650 million light-years away and has uncovered dozens of previously unrecognized systems. Follow-up studies by Koss and colleagues published in 2010 reveal that about a quarter of the Swift BAT AGN were either interacting or in close pairs, with perhaps 60 percent of them poised to merge in another billion years.

SWIFT spacecraft. Credit: NASA.

"If two galaxies collide and each possesses a supermassive black hole, there should be times when both black holes switch on as AGN," said coauthor Richard Mushotzky, professor of astronomy at UMCP. "We weren't seeing many double AGN, so we turned to Chandra for help."

Swift's BAT instrument is scanning one-tenth of the sky at any given moment, its X-ray survey growing more sensitive every year as its exposure increases. Where Swift's BAT provided a wide-angle view, the X-ray telescope aboard the Chandra X-ray Observatory acted like a zoom lens and resolved details a hundred times smaller.

For decades, astronomers have known that the eastern nucleus of Markarian 739 contains a black hole that is actively accreting matter and generating prodigious energy. The Chandra study shows that its western neighbor is too. This makes the galaxy one of the nearest and clearest cases of a binary AGN.

The distance separating the two black holes is about a third of the distance separating the solar system from the center of our own galaxy. The dual AGN of Markarian 739 is the second-closest known, both in terms of distance from one another and distance from Earth. However, another galaxy known as NGC 6240 holds both records.

How did the second AGN remain hidden for so long? "Markarian 739 West shows no evidence of being an AGN in visible, ultraviolet and radio observations," said coauthor Sylvain Veilleux, a professor of astronomy at UMCP. "This highlights the critical importance of high-resolution observations at high X-ray energies in locating binary AGN."

Image above: Viewed in visible light, Markarian 739 resembles a smiling face, with a pair of bright cores underscored by an arcing spiral arm. The object is really a pair of merging galaxies. Data from Swift and Chandra reveal the western core (right) to be a previously unknown AGN; past studies already had identified an AGN in the eastern core. The two supermassive black holes are separated by about 11,000 light-years. The galaxy is 425 million light-years away. Credit: SDSS.

The research team also includes Ezequiel Treister and David Sanders at the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy in Honolulu, Kevin Schawinski at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., and Ranjan Vasudevan, Neal Miller and Margaret Trippe at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Swift, launched in November 2004, is managed by Goddard. It was built and is being operated in collaboration with Penn State University, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and General Dynamics in Falls Church, Va.; the University of Leicester and Mullard Space Sciences Laboratory in the United Kingdom; Brera Observatory and the Italian Space Agency in Italy; plus additional partners in Germany and Japan.

The Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra's science and flight operations from Cambridge, Mass.

More information about SWIFT Spacecraft & Instruments: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/swift/spacecraft/index.html

Images (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Raising the ISS: ATV Johannes Kepler conducts the 'Big Boost'

ESA - ATV-2 Johannes Kepler Mission patch.

10 June 2011

It's the International Space Station's biggest increase in altitude to date, and, thanks to ESA's ATV Johannes Kepler, it will significantly improve the 417-tonne Station's orbital mileage through the next decade of scientific research.

During three intensive reboost manoeuvres, ATV Johannes Kepler is raising the ISS altitude from around 345 km to 380 km, where it will use far less fuel to maintain its orbit and cutting the amount of fuel that must be sent up in the coming years by almost half.

Boosting the ISS in 2008. Now it's Kepler's turn

"These reboosts will improve ISS scientific exploitation enormously, since we'll need to send much less fuel into orbit, making more launch capacity available for spare parts, scientific instruments and supplies," says ESA's Nico Dettmann, ATV programme head.

Almost nothing remains of Earth's atmosphere at 350 or 400 km except faint whips of gas molecules. These are sufficient, however, to cause the Station's orbit to steadily decay due to drag unless it is periodically reboosted. Moving the Station to a higher orbit means that even fewer reboosts, using even less fuel, must be done in the future.

Fuel vs cargo: Optimising upload tonnage

While the higher orbit means the ISS itself will need less fuel, visiting vessels, such as Russia's Soyuz, Japan's HTV and ESA's ATV will use more fuel to get themselves up to the higher altitude.

The International Space Station with ATV-2 and Endeavour

"Yes, this means a saving for the ISS but an increased usage for the visiting vessels. Nonetheless, a significantly larger tonnage of food, water, spare parts and research instruments and samples can be sent up, keeping the Station operational until 2020 and beyond," says Dettmann.

The new orbit is being achieved in several steps.

Small steps to Big Boost

On top of a small reboost performed by the Space Shuttle Endeavour on 29 May, ATV is firing the eight thrusters of its Orbit Correction System (OCS) on three separate days under the watchful eyes of the joint ESA/CNES mission operations team at the ATV Control Centre (ATV-CC), Toulouse.

ATV conducted the first boost on 3 June, raising the ISS orbit by about 3.8 km. The next boosts are scheduled for 12 and 15 June and will provide a much bigger jump.

ATV cutaway description

On each day, ATV will be commanded to conduct two individual burns lasting about 75 minutes each and consuming, in total, about 1400 kg of propellant.

"A pause between each burn is necessary due to how Kepler's fuel system pumps propellant and to let the thrusters cool down," says ESA's Mike Steinkopf, Mission Director for reboost activities at ATV-CC. Each day will see the Station's orbit increase by about 20 km."

Boosting the Station is an excellent example of how ESA's contribution to the ISS helps all of the international partners.

"With the end of the shuttle era, the Station's orbit can be optimised at a higher level, which helps all partners make most efficient use of the orbiting outpost's unique scientific capabilities," says Dettmann.

"We really are quite pleased that ATV can help out like this. It's truly a marvellous vessel."

Related links:

International Space Station: http://www.esa.int/esaHS/iss.html

EADS Astrium: http://www.astrium.eads.net/

Arianespace: http://www.arianespace.com/index/index.asp

Images, Video, Text, Credits: ESA / NASA.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Entry, descent and surface science for 2016 Mars mission

ESA / NASA - ExoMars Mission logo.

10 June 2011

ESA and NASA have announced the scientific investigations selected for their 2016 ExoMars lander demonstrator. They will probe the atmosphere during the descent, and return the first ever data on electrical fields at the surface of Mars.

The EDM Entry, descent, and landing Demonstrator Module is part of the joint ESA/NASA ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter mission to be launched in 2016 for arrival at Mars nine months later.

Although its main goal is to demonstrate European entry, descent and landing technologies for future visits to Mars, it will also offer some limited, but useful, scientific opportunities.

 The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter

“The EDM will be landing during the dust storm season,” says Jorge Vago, ExoMars Project Scientist. “This will provide a unique chance to characterise a dust-loaded atmosphere during entry and descent, and to conduct interesting surface measurements associated with a dust-rich environment.” 
    
“Although its main goal is to demonstrate European entry, descent and landing technologies for future visits to Mars, it will also offer some limited, but useful, scientific opportunities.”
For the descent phase, two proposed investigations called Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) Science and IDEAS (Investigations During Entry and Atmospheric Science) were selected and combined into one Entry and Descent Science programme.

The joint team will use the module’s entry, descent and landing engineering data to reconstruct its trajectory and determine the atmospheric conditions.

Once on the surface, the DREAMS (Dust characterisation, Risk assessment, and Environment Analyser on the Martian Surface) scientific payload will function as an environmental station for the two to four days of the surface mission.

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter

Image above: An artist's impression of the ESA/NASA ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. The orbiter will carry a European entry, descent and landing demonstrator vehicle.

To achieve this, teams of scientists and engineers from nine countries around the world will develop a dedicated suite of sensors to measure the wind speed and direction (MetWind), humidity (MetHumi), pressure (MetBaro) and surface temperature (MarsTem), and to determine the transparency of the atmosphere (ODS).

DREAMS will also make the first measurements of electrical fields at the planet’s surface with its MicroARES detector. Electrical fields are likely to be generated when grains rub against each other in the dust-rich atmosphere, so landing during the dust storm season increases the chance of being able to study this charging and its consequences.

In addition to the surface payload, a colour camera system on the EDM will deliver valuable additional scientific data, as well as spectacular images. No design has yet been chosen for the camera, but a decision is expected before the end of this year.

“The selection of these science investigations complements the technological goals of the EDM,” says Dr Vago. “This has been an important step that will allow our team to move on to the development of this important mission element.”

Related links:

Mars Express: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/index.html

Robotic exploration of Mars: http://exploration.esa.int/science-e/www/area/index.cfm?fareaid=118

Images, Text, Credit: ESA

Cheers, Orbiter.ch

Aquarius Launches on Mission To Observe Salty Seas

NASA - SAC-D / Aquarius Mission patch.

10 June 2011

Image above: Liftoff of the Delta II rocket with the Aquarius/SAC-D spacecraft. Photo credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls.

Right on schedule, the Aquarius/SAC-D spacecraft separated from the Delta II launch vehicle's second stage nearly one hour into its flight, placing the satellite in Earth orbit.

Aquarius SAC-D Soars into Orbit!

The successful release of the spacecraft comes after a smooth countdown and liftoff from NASA's Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. Launch was on time at 7:20 a.m. PDT (10:20 a.m. EDT) at the start of a five-minute launch window.

NASA's Aquarius instrument is part of the SAC-D spacecraft built by CONAE, Argentina's space agency. The mission is expected to gather global measurements of ocean surface salinity, leading to a better understanding of ocean circulation, climate and Earth's water cycle. Once in orbit, the spacecraft will go through a checkout period before it begins its three-year mission.

Read more: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/aquarius/news/aquarius20110609.html

Image (mentioned), Video, Text, Credit: NASA / NASA TV:

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

China's second moon orbiter Chang'e-2 goes to outer space

CNSA - Chang'e-2 (CLEP) Mission logo.

June 10, 2011

China's second moon orbiter Chang'e-2 on Thursday set off from its moon orbit for outer space about 1.5 million km away from the earth, Chinese scientists said Thursday.

The orbiter left its moon orbit at 5:10 p.m. and it will take about 85 days for the orbiter to reach outer space, according to the State Administration of Science,Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND). The orbiter had finished all its tasks within its designed life span of six months by April 1. Scientists decided to let it carry out additional exploratory tasks as the orbiter still had fuel in reserve.

Chang'e-2 China is going deep

Traveling into outer space from the moon's orbit is the most important task among five additional ones, according to the SASTIND. "It's the first time in the world for a satellite to be set off from the moon in remote outer space," said Zhou Jianliang, deputy chief engineer of the Chang'e-2 measure and control system of the Beijing Aerospace Control Center (BACC).

Moon exploration means about 400,000 km away from the earth, but outer space exploration means 1.5 million km, posing great challenges to the country's technology in measure and control, telecommunications, data transaction and orbit design, scientists said. Before flying away, the orbiter had finished two additional tasks as of May 23.

One was to take photos of the northern and southern poles of the moon. The other was to descend again to the perilune orbit, about 15 km away from the surface, to catch high-resolution images of the Sinus Iridum, or Bay of Rainbows, the proposed landing ground for future moon missions. Scientists hope the satellite can continue operations until the end of next year.

"We are developing outer space measure and control stations in outer space and they will be capable to carry out tasks by the end of the second half next year," said an SASTIND scientist, who declined to be named. At that time, the satellite can be used to test the two stations' functions, the scientist said.

Challenges exist as Chang'e-2 was not designed for the additional task and it is now in extended service without extra capacities to deal with abnormal risks, Zhou said. Meanwhile, long-distance brings many problems like weakening signals and difficulties in measure and control, Zhou said. The Chang'e probes are named after a legendary Chinese moon goddess who flew to the moon.

Video of the mission Chang'e-2

Besides the current operations, China's ambitious three-stage moon mission will include a moon landing and launch of a moon rover around 2012 in the second phase. In the third phase, another rover will land on the moon and return to earth with lunar soil and stone samples for scientific research around 2017. The country has no plan or timetable for a manned moon landing for now.

China launched its first lunar probe, Chang'e-1, in October 2007. It became the third country after Russia and the United States to send a person into space in 2003. Two more manned space missions followed with the more recent in 2008 involving the country's first human space walk.

Images, Video, Text, Credits: Deng Shasha, Xinhua News Agency / CNSA / CCTV (Youtube).

Related links:

China National Space Administration (CNSA): http://www.cnsa.gov.cn/n615709/cindex-linshi.html

Xinhua News Agency: http://www.xinhuanet.com/english2010/

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Small Sun-watcher Proba-2 offers detailed view of massive solar eruption

ESA - Proba-2 logo.

10 June 2011

ESA’s Proba-2 small Sun-watcher was among the flotilla of satellites on watch as the Sun erupted spectacularly this week.

7 June solar flare eruption seen by Proba-2

After years of relative quietness, the Sun is waking up. Tuesday 7 June saw a medium-class M2.5 solar flare, associated with a proton storm, a coronal mass ejection that glanced past Earth on Thursday 9 June and an accompanying burst of radio energy.

ESA’s Proba-2 satellite was launched in November 2009, during the most inactive period of the solar cycle, but now the Sun is growing more active as it progresses towards ‘solar max’, expected in 2013.

Less than a cubic metre in volume, Proba-2 is the smallest member of the class of Sun-monitoring satellites that includes the ESA/NASA SOHO, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory and STEREO and Japan's Hinode.

Proba-2’s radiometer measures the energy intensity of the Sun across four separate ultraviolet bands every 50 milliseconds, and observed a spike across its two short-wavelength bands due to the flare.

LYRA measures solar flare intensity

At the same time, the satellite’s SWAP Sun-imager captured the massive prominence eruption as it occurred, as a mass of high-energy particles and superheated gas rose up from the solar surface.

This gas was relatively cool – about 80 000ºC – which explains why it appears quite dark at the extreme ultraviolet wavelength of SWAP.

Proba-2

Much of this gas then fell back to the Sun, with dark downflows that brighten as they fall, probably due to localised heating. This darkening actually caused a decrease in the average intensity seen by SWAP.

Solar prominence seen in context

Proba-2 is a technology demonstration satellite that also houses a quartet of science instruments. The imager and radiometer are operated by the Royal Observatory of Belgium. Two instruments operated by the Czech Astronomical Institute monitor the plasma environment around the satellite, including assessing how the coronal mass ejection affects Earth’s electrically charged ionosphere.

More information:

Proba-2: science payloads: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Proba/SEMSD5ZVNUF_0.html

Proba-2: technology demonstrations: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Proba/SEMZC5ZVNUF_0.html

Royal Observatory of Belgium: http://www.astro.oma.be/

ROB Proba-2 science centre: http://proba2.sidc.be/index.html/

Images, Video, Text, Credits: ESA / ROB.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch