NASA Selects Crew for Simulated Trip to a Mars Moon

 

NASA - HERA Campaign 6 Mission XXII (C6M1) patch.

Sep 29, 2021

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to head deep into space, all the way to Mars? Through a simulated journey, four volunteer research subjects will soon have a chance to find out.

Image above: The new crew for the upcoming mission of NASA's Human Exploration Research Analog, or HERA, stands in front of the habitat that will be their home for 45 days.
From left to right: Lauren Cornell, Monique Garcia, Christopher Roberts, and Madelyne Willis. Image Credit: NASA.

Beginning Oct. 1, 2021, four people will live and work for 45 days inside a unique, ground-based habitat at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Designed to serve as an analog for isolation, confinement, and remote conditions in exploration scenarios, this small habitat is called the Human Exploration Research Analog, or HERA.

NASA's Human Exploration Research Analog, or HERA configuration

HERA will house crew members who will simulate the long trek to Mars’ moon Phobos. Similar to other HERA missions, once the habitat’s doors close, the crew will need to stay inside for 45 days until the mission ends on Nov. 15.

As the simulated journey takes crew members closer to Phobos, those inside will experience increasing delays in communicating with the outside world. When the simulation successfully brings the crew to Phobos, this delay will last up to five minutes each way. Such delays will force the crew — and those coordinating their journey — to practice communicating in ways that minimize impacts to mission operations, and allow the crew sufficient autonomy to accomplish the mission.

Image above: The Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) is a modular structure consisting of a central core laboratory segment with an adjoining second and third story devoted to living quarters. HRP investigators use the HERA as an analog for future exploration-class missions. Image Credit: NASA.

The upcoming mission signals the start of HERA’s Campaign 6. Three additional missions will follow as part of the campaign, with the final egress set for Sept. 12, 2022.

NASA’s Human Research Program will perform 15 total studies throughout the missions, with seven returning and eight new investigations. The data collected as part of these missions will continue to help prepare humans for Artemis exploration missions to the Moon, trips to the planned lunar Gateway, and long-duration missions to Mars.

Four of the candidates below will form the primary crew of HERA Campaign 6, Mission 1, with the other two as backups. Learn more about each crew member:

Primary Crew

Lauren Cornell

Dr. Lauren Cornell is a graduate of Texas A&M University, University of Texas at San Antonio, and University of Texas at Austin. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Genetics, and a master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering. Her PhD focused on translational science, which is the process of turning research insights into public interventions.

As a research scientist, Cornell has studied the genetics of human evolution, investigated the use of carbon nanotubes for guided neuronal growth, and used magnetic nanoparticles to regenerate ocular tissue resulting from battlefield injuries. She conducted the latter research at the Sensory Trauma Department of the U.S. Army’s Institute of Surgical Research.

Cornell is also the co-founder of NovoThelium, a company focused on improving women’s health care, with a specific focus on modernizing nipple reconstruction post-mastectomy. She has served as a fellow at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research at the Food and Drug Administration and advocated to U.S. Congress for increased scientific funding for the National Institutes of Health, all while mentoring early-career scientists and entrepreneurs.

Currently, Cornell is a researcher for the U.S. Air Force, in San Antonio, Texas, contributing to the military branch’s mission to research, develop, and evaluate innovative technologies that impact the advancement of precision, regenerative, and diagnostic medicine for improving clinical outcomes for troops.

Monique Garcia

Monique Garcia works as a human factors engineer and systems administrator for The MITRE Corporation, tasked with developing a user interface for a telescope system that will be used in NASA’s Deep Space Network. She also assists with developing task automation systems on satellites for the U.S. Space Force.

Garcia has accumulated more than 12 years of military service with the Air National Guard. During her service, she primarily provided support to overseas operations using Remotely Piloted Aircraft, or RPA, as well as domestic RPA operation for wildfire support and disaster recovery.

Garcia earned her Master of Science in Kinesiology from California Baptist University, and is currently working toward a Master of Science in Human Factors Engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. She maintains credentials as a certified personal trainer, with specializations in cognitive and behavioral techniques for health and performance. She aims to contribute and develop meaningful, long-duration human spaceflight research focused on human factors and behavioral performance for mission crews. She lives in Colorado with her husband, Trevor, their son, Jameson, and dog, Ted. In her free time, she enjoys reading, weightlifting and strength conditioning, spending time in nature, and meditating.

Christopher Roberts

Chris Roberts is from Houston, Texas, and works as a project engineer with NASA’s Cold Stowage team in support of the International Space Station program. In this role, he is responsible for end-to-end integration and on-orbit operations for a fleet of hardware on both the space station and visiting vehicle missions.

Roberts and his team are 2021 recipients of NASA’s Spaceflight Awareness Award, an accolade given to employees for their dedication and contributions to flight safety and mission success. Previously, he was a cargo operations flight controller for the space shuttle and for assembly missions to the space station.

Born in Minnesota, Roberts attended Saint John’s University in Collegeville, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in physics. He then attended Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, where he obtained a master’s degree in engineering physics and focused his research on laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy. In his free time, Roberts is an avid cyclist and enjoys hiking, camping, woodworking, and restoring vintage motorcycles.

Madelyne Willis

Madelyne Willis is a microbial ecologist from Atlanta, Georgia. She has extensive field experience, including multiple deployments to the Arctic and Antarctic.

Willis is working on her PhD in Ecology and Environmental Science at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana. Her primary research is focused on polar ecology, understanding how microorganisms survive in frozen environments, and how microbial activity may alter the geochemistry of glacier ice. Willis is also actively involved in projects to develop new spectroscopy instrumentation for Earth and planetary exploration.

Backup Crew

Justin Lawrence

Justin Lawrence is a planetary science Ph.D. candidate, and a fellow with the Future Investigator in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology program, also known as FINESST. He’s earning his doctorate at Georgia Tech’s Planetary Habitability and Technology Lab.

Lawrence’s research interests intersect at astrobiology, analog fieldwork, climate science, and robotics. Currently, he works primarily with the underwater vehicle Icefin, merging robotic exploration with microbiology to study habitability and ocean-ice interactions below Antarctic ice shelves. His work aims to help develop technologies that will aid future robotic exploration of other ocean worlds, like Jupiter’s moon Europa.

Since 2012, Lawrence has spent more than 1.5 years conducting research in Antarctica. He has also sailed 6,500 nautical miles across the globe, aboard research vessels with Sea Education Association. When not in the field, Lawrence enjoys cycling, sailing, photography, gardening, and scuba diving.

Pu Wang

Dr. Pu Wang is an engineering team manager in The Boeing Company. At Boeing, he earned special accolades for leadership and knowledge depth, including being named a Boeing Associate Technical Fellow and a Designated Expert.

Wang has worked in the aviation and aerospace industry in more than 10 commercial and military programs. Wang specializes in multiple disciplines, such as structural analysis, fatigue and fracture mechanics, aircraft design, propulsion, plasma physics, and electromagnetic fields.

Before joining Boeing, Wang worked for General Electric and United Technologies to develop aircraft engines. His first venture into space programs involved research on 3D immersed finite element methods and particle-in-cell simulations of plasma-lunar surface interactions. Wang received a PhD in aerospace engineering from Virginia Tech. He also earned a master’s degree in solid mechanics and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.

Related links:

Human Exploration Research Analog, or HERA: https://www.nasa.gov/analogs/hera

HERA’s Campaign 6: https://www.nasa.gov/analogs/hera/mission-patches

Human Research Program: http://www.nasa.gov/hrp

Humans in Space: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/humans-in-space

Moon to Mars: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/moon-to-mars/

Images, Text, Credits: NASA/Kelli Mars.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Cosmonauts of Roscosmos gave an excursion to the Science module (Nauka)

 

ROSCOSMOS - Science Multipurpose Laboratory Module (Nauka) patch.

Sep. 29, 2021

Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov, who are currently on board the International Space Station, gave an exclusive video tour of the Science multipurpose laboratory module.

Science Multipurpose Laboratory Module (Nauka) cutaway. Image Credit: ROSCOSMOS

The new Russian module is designed to increase the technical and operational capabilities of the ISS Russian Segment. It will provide an opportunity for the implementation of a research program in the interests of fundamental science and the social sphere.

Tour of the International Space Station: Science Module (in Russian)

Currently, the crew of the International Space Station consists of Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky, Pyotr Dubrov and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hai, who arrived on the ISS on April 9 on the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft, as well as NASA astronauts who arrived on the ISS on April 24 Megan MacArthur and Shane Kimbrough, ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Akihiko Hoshide.

Related links:

ROSCOSMOS Press Release: https://www.roscosmos.ru/32761/

Science (Nauka): https://www.roscosmos.ru/tag/nauka/

International Space Station (ISS): https://www.roscosmos.ru/tag/mks/

Image (mentioned), Video, Text, Credits: ROSCOSMOS/Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

This May Be the First Planet Found Orbiting 3 Stars at Once

 

ESO - European Southern Observatory logo.

Sep. 29, 2021

It’s called a circumtriple planet, and evidence that one exists suggests that planet formation is less unusual than once believed.

Video above: An artist’s animation of the three stars’ movement at the center of GW Orionis, based on a computer model using observations made by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope. Video Credits: ESO/Exeter/Kraus et al./L. Calçada.

GW Ori is a star system 1,300 light years from Earth in the constellation of Orion. It is surrounded by a huge disk of dust and gas, a common feature of young star systems that are forming planets. But fascinatingly, it is a system with not one star, but three.

As if that were not intriguing enough, GW Ori’s disk is split in two, almost like Saturn’s rings if they had a massive gap in between. And to make it even more bizarre, the outer ring is tilted at about 38 degrees.

Scientists have been trying to explain what is going on there. Some hypothesized that the gap in the disk could be the result of one or more planets forming in the system. If so, this would be the first known planet that orbits three stars at once, also known as a circumtriple planet.

Now the GW Ori system has been modeled in greater detail, and researchers say a planet — a gassy world as massive as Jupiter — is the best explanation for the gap in the dust cloud. Although the planet itself cannot be seen, astronomers may be witnessing it carve out its orbit in its first million years of its existence.

A paper on the finding was published in September in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The scientists say it disproves an alternative explanation — that the gravitational torque of the stars cleared the space in the disk. Their paper suggests there is not enough turbulence in the disk, known as its viscosity, for this explanation to suffice.

The finding also highlights how much more there is to learn about the unexpected ways in which planets can form.

Image above: An image made by the ALMA telescope, left, shows the GW Ori disc’s ringed structure, with the innermost ring separated from the rest of the disc. The SPHERE observations, right, show the shadow of this innermost ring on the rest of the disc. Image Credits: ESO/L. Calçada, Exeter/Kraus et al.

Anyone who has watched George Lucas’ original “Star Wars” is familiar with planets that can have two stars rising and falling in its skies. Luke Skywalker’s dusty home of Tatooine was in such a binary star system. But a planet orbiting three stars would be more unusual.

If a familiar life form could dwell on a gas giant like the one that would be orbiting GW Ori, it would not actually be able to see the three stars in its skies. Rather, they would see only a pair as the two innermost stars orbit so close as to appear like a single point of light. Yet as the planet rotated, its stars would rise and fall in fascinating sunrises and sunsets unlike any other known world.

“‘Star Wars’ missed a trick,” said Rebecca Nealon from the University of Warwick in England, a co-author on the paper.

Scientists have been on the lookout for a planet orbiting three stars, and found potential evidence in another system, GG Tau A, located about 450 light years from Earth. But the researchers say the gap in GW Ori’s gas and dust ring makes it a more convincing example.

“It may be the first evidence of a circumtriple planet carving a gap in real time,” said Jeremy Smallwood from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, lead author of the new paper.

William Welsh, an astronomer at San Diego State University, said the researchers “make a good case. If this turns out to be a planet, it would be fascinating.”

Alison Young from the University of Leicester in England who has argued that GW Ori’s stars caused the gap in the system’s disk, rather than a planet, notes that observations from the ALMA telescope and Very Large Telescope in Chile in the coming months could end the debate.

“We’ll be able to look for direct evidence of a planet in the disk,” Dr. Young said.

If the planet hypothesis is confirmed, the system would reinforce the idea that planet formation is common. Several worlds, known as circumbinary planets, are already known to orbit two stars at once. But circumtriple planets have been harder to come by — despite estimates that at least a tenth of all stars cluster in systems of three or more. Yet their possible existence suggests that planets spring up in all sorts of places, even here in this most bizarre of systems.

“Three stars is not enough to kill planet formation,” Dr. Nealon said.

That suggests that exoplanets are likely to arise in more and more unusual locations. “What we’ve learned is any time planets can form, they do,” said Sean Raymond, an astronomer from the University of Bordeaux in France who was not involved in the paper.

Perhaps even a world orbiting four, or five, or six stars at once?

“I don’t see why not,” he said.

Related links:

European Southern Observatory (ESO): https://www.eso.org/

ESO's VLT: https://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/paranal-observatory/vlt/

Image (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: ESO/The New York Times/By Jonathan O’Callaghan.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Tiger Team solves mystery of Euclid’s galaxy speed camera

 

ESA - Euclid Mission patch.

Sep. 29, 2021

When tested in space-like conditions, the instrument on ESA’s Euclid space telescope set to measure the velocities of fast-receding galaxies abruptly stopped operating. Blindsided, the mission team feared it might take weeks or even months of extra time to uncover the reason why. Then a newly-convened ESA Tiger Team came to their assistance, pinpointing the cause and keeping Euclid on its set launch schedule.

Euclid is a space telescope set to explore the dark Universe. Over the course of its six year mission, operating 1.5 million km from Earth, Euclid’s 1.2 m diameter telescope will map the 3D distribution of up to two billion galaxies up to 10 billion light years away – around a third of the observable Universe. By revealing the Universe’s large-scale structure, and its pattern of expansion, the mission will cast light on the mysterious dark energy and dark matter making up the vast majority of the cosmos.

Euclid spacecraft

To achieve this Euclid will employ a pair of instruments, designed by the nearly 1 000 scientists from 100 institutes from 13 European countries making up the Euclid consortium (plus NASA contributions). A visible light camera to image distant galaxies works alongside the Near Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer. NISP splits infrared light coming from these galaxies to derive key data, including their speed of outward expansion – measuring their ‘red shift’, on the same principle as a police radar gun.

The problem? All of a sudden – while being tested with the rest of Euclid’s payload module in a cold vacuum state – NISP refused to go on working.

A camera that doesn’t respond

Paolo Strada, ESA’s Senior Instrument Engineer for Euclid, explains: “The anomaly emerged with the instrument’s flight model, once it had already been fully tested, formally accepted then integrated into the spacecraft’s payload module – along with all other elements including the telescope, camera and optic bench.

Euclid's NISP instrument

In late May the payload module had commenced ‘thermal vacuum’ testing inside a Centre Spatial de Liège chamber in Belgium when NISP began failing to initiate a second acquisition once its first acquisition was complete.

“Imagine having a nice digital camera. You take a picture, the image is good and you want to take another. But as you try to do that, the camera control is no longer responding: you cannot set the exposure, or release the shutter. The only way to take another picture is to restart, but after taking another picture the problem reoccurs.”

Thermal vacuum chamber

Regular restarts would scarcely be an option if Euclid is to complete its mammoth observing task; Euclid is designed to stream 850 gigabits of data daily to Earth, adding up to many petabytes of raw imagery over the mission’s lifetime.

Checking clues from telemetry

“This was something we had never experienced before,” adds Paolo. “The NISP instrument had performed wonderfully through hundreds of hours of flawless operation, transferring hundreds of terabytes with no problem. The stopping did seem to depend on the cryogenic temperature experienced inside the chamber – it disappeared in ambient conditions – but our hands were tied when it came to investigating: NISP and the rest of the payload module stayed inside the thermal vacuum chamber, as the nominal test campaign continued in the meantime. It was almost like the mission was already in space; for the time being we were limited to the information we could obtain from telemetry.”

Checking telemetry

Consortium members, industry partners and the ESA mission team were collectively baffled. Suspicion centred on the cables that transferred data from NISP’s focal plane sensors to its computer. Perhaps there was signal noise, electromagnetic interference from elsewhere, or cabling being improperly grounded?

The range of possibilities was so wide however, that the Euclid team were considering a second, dedicated thermal vacuum campaign to get to the root of the problem – which would add weeks or months to their schedule and put their planned launch date beyond reach.

Enter the Tiger Team

Before such drastic action was taken, the mission put together a ‘Tiger Team’ of ESA and industry experts to try and solve the mystery.

NISP instrument

Tiger Team member Felix Siegle, of ESA’s On-Board Computers and Data Handling Section, discovered the halting was rooted in a software bug, rather than any physical issue: “I read through the documentation, talked to the engineers, applied my trade, then began to feel a bit suspicious. If this really was purely physical in nature, then I’d expect the failure to be intermittent, but instead the freezing was occurring every single time.”

Felix homed in on areas of software code where data transmission might overlap with instrument control, telling the Euclid team to take look in such regions.

Opening chamber after testing

What they found was an error flag that in normal conditions should have been no problem was being wrongly interpreted by the software to signal that the telemetry and telecommand interface interface to the instrument sensors had become faulty, shutting it down.

Flagging an error

“The error flag had not appeared before because the cable configuration had shifted very slightly from previous tests, changing the signal propagation time from the sensors to the computer interface,” adds Felix.

Euclid payload module inside thermal shroud

“The cryogenic temperatures also played a role, creating slightly longer latency, hitting the window needed from a shift of just a few billionths of a second. The resulting flag was actually informative in nature, rather than something the software should have acted upon, but once identified, this unwanted behaviour could be corrected with a simple software patch.

“In terms of lessons learned, in dealing with such complex software, it is good to look at the areas of interface between hardware and software, the work of differing companies or engineers, because misunderstandings or mistakes can occur easily in such in-between regions.”

Instruments installed on Euclid spacecraft

Paolo and the rest of the Euclid team were delighted with the rapid solution: “Felix had called me and said he thought he’d found something within a half an hour. It shows the importance of a fresh look at a problem.”

Euclid spacecraft

Euclid remains on its nominal schedule, with its payload module due to be transported to Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy to be integrated with its platform module.

The next step will be spacecraft-level testing ahead of a launch by a baseline Soyuz vehicle from Kourou in French Guiana, scheduled for a launch window opening from the end of 2022.

Related links:

Euclid: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Euclid_overview

Near Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer (NISP): https://sci.esa.int/web/euclid/-/euclid-nisp-instrument

Centre Spatial de Liège: https://www.csl.uliege.be/cms/c_10241774/en/csl

ESA’s On-Board Computers and Data Handling Section: https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Engineering_Technology/Onboard_Computers_and_Data_Handling/Onboard_Computers_and_Data_Handling

Thales Alenia Space: https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/global/activities/space

Images, Animation, Text, Credits: ESA/ATG medialab/NASA, ESA, CXC, C. Ma, H. Ebeling and E. Barrett (University of Hawaii/IfA), et al. and STScI/Euclid Consortium & NISP instrument team/CSL.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

SpaceX CRS-23 Dragon Returns Experiments on Brain, Muscles, Liver to Earth

 

SpaceX - Dragon CRS-23 Mission patch.

Sep 28, 2021

The 23rd SpaceX commercial resupply services mission returns samples from scientific experiments on the International Space Station. Back on Earth, scientists anticipate quick access to their experiments for additional observations and analyses.

Dragon undocks from the space station Sept. 30 and is scheduled for splashdown near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida hours later.

Read more about some of the experiment samples riding the Dragon back to Earth:

Two rings to shear them all

Researchers investigating the mechanisms of certain diseases on Earth must contend with the forces of gravity and the interaction between liquids and solid containers. These forces differ from such interfaces in the body, such as those in arteries and brain tissue, and can affect results. The Ring Sheared Drop (RSD) experiment developed a device that uses surface tension rather than a solid container to hold liquids, something possible only in microgravity. Researchers used the device to study protein aggregates called amyloid fibrils, which may be related to diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and type 2 diabetes. The device pins a drop of liquid between two rings and rotates one while keeping the other stationary to create shear flow, or a difference in velocity between adjacent liquid layers. Previous research shows that this shear flow plays a significant role in formation of amyloid fibrils. The study confirmed that the surface tension concept of RSD works for containing protein solutions in space. Fluid extracted after each run is returning to Earth so researchers can determine the extent of protein fibril formation, study their structure, and compare both to what happens in ground-based controls. Results could improve the fundamental understanding of how amyloid fibrils form and are transported, as well as the effects of shear at fluid interfaces relevant to conditions in the body.

Animation above: A drop of insulin solution contained by surface tension in the Ring Sheared Drop device. The RSD investigation studies protein aggregates called amyloid fibrils that play a role in diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, prions, and type 2 diabetes. Animation Credits: Joe A. Adam and Patrick M. McMackin.

Muscling out atrophy

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) investigation Anti-Atrophy tests the ability of biomaterials to inhibit muscle atrophy in microgravity. The biomaterials include a muscle loss inhibitor and a material that can accelerate muscle growth. Cells cultured on the space station with and without biomaterials were fixed and stowed in the Minus Eighty Laboratory Freezer for ISS (MELFI) for return to Earth. Researchers plan to compare the two types of cultures to verify the effectiveness of the biomaterials. Results may lead to the production of pharmaceuticals to prevent muscle atrophy, not only for astronauts in space, but also for the elderly on Earth.

This Aug. 20 tweet from @ISS_Research shows JAXA astronaut Akihido Hoshide working on the investigation.

Analyzing drug-metabolizing liver enzymes

Changes in levels of the liver enzymes can affect how the body metabolizes some drugs. Genes in Space-8 tests a technology for monitoring the expression of genes that control these critical enzymes. This test could lead to a better understanding of spaceflight-induced changes in liver gene expression and may support development of new therapies that can account for the body’s adaptations to spaceflight. Samples prepared on the ground launched frozen to the space station. Following each experiment run, images and videos were downlinked, and samples placed in cold stowage before return to Earth for further analysis.

Animation above: The Genes in Space-8 study tests a Fluorescence Viewer measuring gene expression in space, which could improve medication delivery on future space missions. In the tubes, a fluorescent dye binds to double-stranded DNA. Raising the temperature melts the strands apart and eliminates the fluorescence. Lowering temperature reverses that effect. (Sped up 1000x). Animation Credits: Genes in Space.

A relatively new capability, returning time-sensitive experiments quickly to Earth allows scientists to look at samples sooner, before gravity has a chance to fully take effect, then follow up with more in-depth analysis at their home labs. Running ground controls and processing flight samples at the same Kennedy Space Center labs also provides more consistent results. With the quick turnaround, investigators also can modify an experiment, learning from the first round to plan for the next.

Related links:

Ring Sheared Drop (RSD): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7383

Anti-Atrophy: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7336

Minus Eighty Laboratory Freezer for ISS (MELFI): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Facility.html?#id=56

Genes in Space-8: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=8438

Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/overview.html

International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Animations (mentioned), Image, Video, Text, Credits: NASA/Ana Guzman/JSC/International Space Station Program Research Office/Melissa Gaskill.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

NASA’s Mars Fleet Lays Low As Sun Moves Between Earth and Red Planet

 

NASA logo.

Sep 28, 2021

The missions will continue collecting data about the Red Planet, though engineers back on Earth will stop sending commands to them until mid-October.

Image above: NASA’s Mars missions, clockwise from top left: Perseverance rover and Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, InSight lander, Odyssey orbiter, MAVEN orbiter, Curiosity rover, and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

NASA will stand down from commanding its Mars missions for the next few weeks while Earth and the Red Planet are on opposite sides of the Sun. This period, called Mars solar conjunction, happens every two years.

The Sun expels hot, ionized gas from its corona, which extends far into space. During solar conjunction, when Earth and Mars can’t “see” each other, this gas can interfere with radio signals if engineers try to communicate with spacecraft at Mars. That could corrupt commands and result in unexpected behavior from our deep space explorers.

To be safe, NASA engineers send Mars spacecraft a list of simple commands to carry out for a few weeks. This year, most missions will stop sending commands between Oct. 2 and Oct. 16. A few extend that commanding moratorium, as it’s called, a day or two in either direction, depending on the angular distance between Mars and the Sun in Earth’s sky.

“Though our Mars missions won’t be as active these next few weeks, they’ll still let us know their state of health,” said Roy Gladden, manager of the Mars Relay Network at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Each mission has been given some homework to do until they hear from us again.”

Here’s how some of those Mars missions will be spending that time:

- Perseverance will take weather measurements with its MEDA (short for Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer) sensors, look for dust devils with its cameras (though it won’t move its mast, or “head”), run its RIMFAX (Radar Imager for Mars’ Subsurface Experiment) radar, and capture new sounds with its microphones.

- The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter will remain stationary at its location 575 feet (175 meters) away from Perseverance and communicate its status weekly to the rover.

- The Curiosity rover will take weather measurements using its REMS (Rover Environmental Monitoring Station) sensors, take radiation measurements with its RAD (Radiation Assessment Detector) and DAN (Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons) sensors, and look for dust devils with its suite of cameras.

- The stationary InSight lander will continue using its seismometer to detect temblors like the large marsquakes it captured recently.

- NASA’s three orbiters – Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and MAVEN – will all continue relaying some data from the agency’s surface missions back to Earth, in addition to gathering their own science.

While a limited amount of science data will reach Earth during conjunction, the spacecraft will save most of it until after the moratorium. (That means there will be a temporary pause in the stream of raw images available from Perseverance, Curiosity, and InSight.)

Then, they’ll beam their remaining data to NASA’s Deep Space Network, a system of massive Earth-based radio antennas managed by JPL. Engineers will spend about a week downloading the information before normal spacecraft operations resume. If the teams monitoring these missions determine any of the collected science data has been corrupted, they can usually have that data retransmitted.

For more about NASA’s Mars missions, visit:

https://mars.nasa.gov/ and https://nasa.gov/mars

Related links:

Mars solar conjunction: https://mars.nasa.gov/all-about-mars/night-sky/solar-conjunction/

Mars Relay Network: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/the-mars-relay-network-connects-us-to-nasas-martian-explorers

Deep Space Network (DSN): https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/scan/services/networks/deep_space_network/about

Perseverance: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

Curiosity: https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/

InSight: https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/

Image (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Naomi Hartono/Karen Fox/Alana Johnson/JPL/Andrew Good.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

CERN - How to train your magnets

 

CERN - European Organization for Nuclear Research logo.

Sep. 28, 2021

When the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) begins Run 3 next year, operators aim to increase the energy of the proton beams to an unprecedented 6.8 TeV. This means the thousands of superconducting magnets, whose fields direct the beams around their trajectory, need to grow accustomed to much stronger currents after a long period of inactivity during LS2. This is done through an ongoing “magnet training” process.

Image above: The LHC magnets surround the beampipe along its 27 km circumference. (Image: CERN).

Matteo Solfaroli, part of the LHC Operations group, oversees the coordination of the hardware commissioning for the LHC. His job involves training every single chain of magnets (called a circuit), by gradually bringing them up to their nominal currents. “This is a large project because we have about 1600 superconducting circuits in the LHC, ranging from a 60-amp nominal current to 13 kiloamps,” he says. “These are really big circuits, and we need to test them all individually – we are talking about around 12 000 tests.”

If the magnets were not trained, the high currents would cause them to undergo a random phenomenon called “quenching”, where a small section of magnet coil overheats. The magnets are designed to stop the coil burning away by distributing this heat across the whole magnet. However, this results in warming up the magnet and some of its neighbours, causing them to go above critical temperature, where they are highly resistive and unable to provide the required magnetic field.

After a quench has happened, the magnet must be cooled back to cryogenic conditions before a current can be run again. The Powering Tests team repeats the process of current increase until the magnets can withstand their nominal current without quenching.

This works because the magnets have “memory”. “The magnet adjusts to the new current level,” Solfaroli said. It’s a similar principle to any other sort of training: if you have ever started running, you will know that with each session you are able to run for longer without stopping – until you reach a point where you can run for a sustained period. Muscle memory increases your endurance. Similarly, magnet memory increases their endurance to withstand high currents for sustained periods without quenching.

Image above: Current in a main dipole circuit during training. The constant gradient is the gradual ramping up of the current, and the exponential decay is the safe extraction of the current when the quench protection system detects a quench. (Image: Powering Tests team/CERN).

The eight largest LHC dipole magnet circuits need to sustain a current of 11 500 amps. “The problem is that the quench phenomena can happen in any of the magnets,” said Solfaroli. “For the small circuits, quenching is not a particular problem because this is a fast recovery. But for the main dipole circuits, the recovery time is between eight and twelve hours.”

Image above: How quenches look in the CCC – green blocks show magnets at nominal conditions and red blocks show magnets on which the quench protection system has reacted. (Image: Powering Tests team/CERN).

The whole process: ramping up the current for each circuit; quenching; cooling it down and repeating is long. Combined with all the testing and other processes, the whole magnet preparation can take eight or nine months – like training to run a marathon.

The Powering Tests team expects the magnets to be fully trained by the end of this year.

Note:

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is one of the world’s largest and most respected centres for scientific research. Its business is fundamental physics, finding out what the Universe is made of and how it works. At CERN, the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments are used to study the basic constituents of matter — the fundamental particles. By studying what happens when these particles collide, physicists learn about the laws of Nature.

The instruments used at CERN are particle accelerators and detectors. Accelerators boost beams of particles to high energies before they are made to collide with each other or with stationary targets. Detectors observe and record the results of these collisions.

Founded in 1954, the CERN Laboratory sits astride the Franco–Swiss border near Geneva. It was one of Europe’s first joint ventures and now has 23 Member States.

Related links:

Large Hadron Collider (LHC): https://home.cern/science/accelerators/large-hadron-collider

LS2: https://home.cern/news/news/accelerators/lhc-report-another-run-over-and-ls2-has-just-begun

For more information about European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Visit: https://home.cern/

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: CERN/By Naomi Dinmore.

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