NASA’s Angie Jackman Works to Develop Rocket That Will Bring Mars Samples to Earth

 

NASA - Mars 2020 Mission patch.

March 8, 2022

Meet the project manager of the first rocket to launch from the surface of another planet, the Mars Ascent Vehicle.

Image above: This illustration shows NASA’s Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), which will carry tubes containing Martian rock and soil samples into orbit around Mars, where ESA’s Earth Return Orbiter spacecraft will enclose them in a highly secure containment capsule and deliver them to Earth. Image Credit: NASA.

Right now, some 182 million miles (293 million kilometers) separate the red clay of Alabama from the dusty red planet Mars. But groundbreaking flight hardware developed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, will soon close that distance.

The new hardware is an integral component of the Mars Sample Return campaign, a historic endeavor that will, for the first time, retrieve and deliver samples of that faraway alien terrain for intensive study in laboratories on Earth. A strategic partnership of NASA and ESA (European Space Agency), Mars Sample Return also will bring us closer to human exploration missions to the Red Planet.

Angie Jackman – who has spent more than 35 years leading some of the agency’s most advanced propulsion and engineering projects, state-of-the-art launch vehicle development programs, and complex space science missions – is the Mars Ascent Vehicle project manager.

Set to be the first rocket ever to launch from the surface of another planet, the Mars Ascent Vehicle will play a key role in the Mars Sample Return mission, launching into orbit around the Red Planet the samples gathered by the Perseverance rover from the ancient crater floor it’s now exploring. They’ll be transferred there to ESA’s Earth Return Orbiter.

Jackman’s team includes structural, thermal, mechanical, systems, and propulsion engineers, as well as analysts and technologists – a diverse team of NASA veterans alongside innovative newcomers – all of them deeply familiar with the vital intersection between flight hardware and scientific progress.

Image above: Angie Jackman, manager of the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) project, holds a 3D-printed model of the tubes NASA’s Perseverance rover is already filling with Martian rock and soil samples. Set to be the first rocket to launch from another planet, the MAV is designed to carry the sealed samples into orbit around Mars. Image Credit: NASA.

“Ask any engineer on the team, and they’ll tell you the science fascinates them,” Jackman said. “Engineers ask, ‘How?’ Scientists ask, ‘Why?’ Ultimately, that deeper imperative drives us all – the pride in helping to advance our collective knowledge, to increase our ability to safely navigate our world, and to better understand our place in the cosmos.”

The Marshall team is partnering with Lockheed Martin Space of Littleton, Colorado, which is building the integrated Mars Ascent Vehicle system and designing and developing the rocket’s ground support equipment, and Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation of Elkton, Maryland, which leads development of the ascent vehicle’s propulsion system.

“Together we are working to transform the Mars Ascent Vehicle from a drawing-board concept to an executable project,” Jackman said. “We went through exhaustive design iterations to reduce vehicle mass, ensure automated launch capability, and accurately achieve the orbit necessary to rendezvous with the Earth Return Orbiter and transfer samples for flight back to Earth.”

Combining launch vehicle reliability with the lightweight mass and storage requirements of a complex science payload taps strengths NASA has exhibited across numerous past science and exploration missions. Engineers and mission managers at Marshall have solved complex, technical spaceflight challenges for more than 70 years, from the groundbreaking Apollo Moon missions and the space shuttle program to NASA’s Space Launch System, the powerful new rocket set to launch missions that will bring the first woman and first person of color to the Moon.

Like most career aerospace managers, Jackman gleans best practices from decades of NASA precedents and lessons learned, but always challenges her team to push against conventional wisdom, to seek fresh alternatives that transcend traditional thinking.

“In this competitive, cost-conscious era, we have to work smarter, faster, and more efficiently,” she said. “Anybody can build a big, sturdy bridge, but it takes a disciplined engineering team to build one on schedule and precisely strong enough to do the job. This project taps every aspect of Marshall’s expertise as a NASA leader in propulsion, spaceflight systems, and science. I am so proud of our team. We got this.”

NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission will revolutionize our understanding of Mars by returning samples for study using the most sophisticated instruments around the world. These samples, collected by Perseverance during its exploration of an ancient river delta, are thought to be the best opportunity to reveal the early evolution of Mars, including the potential for life. The mission will fulfill a solar system exploration goal as identified by the National Academy of Sciences.

Learn more about the Mars Sample Return mission here: https://mars.nasa.gov/msr

Related articles:

NASA Selects Developer for Rocket to Retrieve First Samples from Mars
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/02/nasa-selects-developer-for-rocket-to.html

Martian rover motors ahead
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2020/06/martian-rover-motors-ahead.html

ESA welcomes positive review of plan to bring Mars to Earth
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2020/11/esa-welcomes-positive-review-of-plan-to.html

Choosing rocks on Mars to bring to Earth
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2020/04/choosing-rocks-on-mars-to-bring-to-earth.html

Related links:

Mars Ascent Vehicle: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/main/index.html

Mars Sample Return mission: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars-exploration/missions/mars-sample-return/

Perseverance rover: https://www.nasa.gov/perseverance

Space Launch System (SLS): https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/index.html

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/JPL/DC Agle.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Astronomers discover largest molecule yet in a planet-forming disc

 

ESO - European Southern Observatory logo.

March 8, 2022

Dimethyl ether spotted in disc around IRS 48 star

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, researchers at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands have for the first time detected dimethyl ether in a planet-forming disc. With nine atoms, this is the largest molecule identified in such a disc to date. It is also a precursor of larger organic molecules that can lead to the emergence of life.

Molecules in the disc around the star IRS 48

"From these results, we can learn more about the origin of life on our planet and therefore get a better idea of the potential for life in other planetary systems. It is very exciting to see how these findings fit into the bigger picture," says Nashanty Brunken, a Master's student at Leiden Observatory, part of Leiden University, and lead author of the study published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Molecules in the disc around the star IRS 48 (composite)

Dimethyl ether is an organic molecule commonly seen in star-forming clouds, but had never before been found in a planet-forming disc. The researchers also made a tentative detection of methyl formate, a complex molecule similar to dimethyl ether that is also a building block for even larger organic molecules.

ALMA image of comet factory around Oph-IRS 48

"It is really exciting to finally detect these larger molecules in discs. For a while we thought it might not be possible to observe them,” says co-author Alice Booth, also a researcher at Leiden Observatory.

ALMA and VLT image of comet factory around Oph-IRS 48

The molecules were found in the planet-forming disc around the young star IRS 48 (also known as Oph-IRS 48) with the help of ALMA, an observatory co-owned by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). IRS 48, located 444 light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus, has been the subject of numerous studies because its disc contains an asymmetric, cashew-nut-shaped “dust trap”. This region, which likely formed as a result of a newly born planet or small companion star located between the star and the dust trap, retains large numbers of millimetre-sized dust grains that can come together and grow into kilometre-sized objects like comets, asteroids and potentially even planets.

ALMA image of dust trap/comet factory around Oph-IRS 48 (annotated)

Many complex organic molecules, such as dimethyl ether, are thought to arise in star-forming clouds, even before the stars themselves are born. In these cold environments, atoms and simple molecules like carbon monoxide stick to dust grains, forming an ice layer and undergoing chemical reactions, which result in more complex molecules. Researchers recently discovered that the dust trap in the IRS 48 disc is also an ice reservoir, harbouring dust grains covered with this ice rich in complex molecules. It was in this region of the disc that ALMA has now spotted signs of the dimethyl ether molecule: as heating from IRS 48 sublimates the ice into gas, the trapped molecules inherited from the cold clouds are freed and become detectable.

The location of the system Oph-IRS 48 in the constellation of Ophiuchus

“What makes this even more exciting is that we now know these larger complex molecules are available to feed forming planets in the disc,” explains Booth. “This was not known before as in most systems these molecules are hidden in the ice.”

Artist’s animation of the dust trap in IRS 48

The discovery of dimethyl ether suggests that many other complex molecules that are commonly detected in star-forming regions may also be lurking on icy structures in planet-forming discs. These molecules are the precursors of prebiotic molecules such as amino acids and sugars, which are some of the basic building blocks of life.

By studying their formation and evolution, researchers can therefore gain a better understanding of how prebiotic molecules end up on planets, including our own. “We are incredibly pleased that we can now start to follow the entire journey of these complex molecules from the clouds that form stars, to planet-forming discs, and to comets. Hopefully with more observations we can get a step closer to understanding the origin of prebiotic molecules in our own Solar System,” says Nienke van der Marel, a Leiden Observatory researcher who also participated in the study.

Zooming in on the Oph-IRS 48 system

Future studies of IRS 48 with ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), currently under construction in Chile and set to start operations later this decade, will allow the team to study the chemistry of the very inner regions of the disc, where planets like Earth may be forming.

More information:

This research was presented in the paper "A major asymmetric ice trap in a planet-forming disk: III. First detection of dimethyl ether" (doi: https://www.aanda.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202142981) to appear in Astronomy and Astrophysics.

This publication was released on International Women’s Day 2022 and features research undertaken by six researchers who identify as women.

The team is composed of Nashanty G. C. Brunken (Leiden Observatory, Leiden University,  Netherlands [Leiden]), Alice S. Booth (Leiden), Margot Leemker (Leiden), Pooneh Nazari (Leiden),  Nienke van der Marel (Leiden),  Ewine F. van Dishoeck (Leiden Observatory, Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik, Garching, Germany)

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) enables scientists worldwide to discover the secrets of the Universe for the benefit of all. We design, build and operate world-class observatories on the ground — which astronomers use to tackle exciting questions and spread the fascination of astronomy — and promote international collaboration in astronomy. Established as an intergovernmental organisation in 1962, today ESO is supported by 16 Member States (Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom), along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a Strategic Partner. ESO’s headquarters and its visitor centre and planetarium, the ESO Supernova, are located close to Munich in Germany, while the Chilean Atacama Desert, a marvellous place with unique conditions to observe the sky, hosts our telescopes. ESO operates three observing sites: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its Very Large Telescope Interferometer, as well as two survey telescopes, VISTA working in the infrared and the visible-light VLT Survey Telescope. Also at Paranal ESO will host and operate the Cherenkov Telescope Array South, the world’s largest and most sensitive gamma-ray observatory. Together with international partners, ESO operates APEX and ALMA on Chajnantor, two facilities that observe the skies in the millimetre and submillimetre range. At Cerro Armazones, near Paranal, we are building “the world’s biggest eye on the sky” — ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope. From our offices in Santiago, Chile we support our operations in the country and engage with Chilean partners and society.

Links:

Largest Molecule yet Spotted in a Planet-forming Disc (ESOcast 253 Light):
https://www.eso.org/public/videos/eso2205a/

Research paper: https://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso2205/eso2205a.pdf

Photos of ALMA: https://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/category/alma/

Find out more about ESO's Extremely Large Telescope: https://elt.eso.org/

For journalists: subscribe to receive our releases under embargo in your language: https://www.eso.org/public/outreach/pressmedia/#epodpress_form

For scientists: got a story? Pitch your research: http://www.eso.org/sci/publications/announcements/sciann17463.html

Images Credits: ESO/L. Calçada, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/A. Pohl, van der Marel et al., Brunken et al./IAU and Sky & Telescope/Videos Credits: ESO/L. Calçada/ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org)/Digitized Sky Survey 2/S. Guisard (www.eso.org/~sguisard). Music: movetwo/Text Credits: ESO/Bárbara Ferreira/Leiden Observatory, Leiden University/Nienke van der Marel/Alice Booth/Nashanty Brunken.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Life Science, Fire Safety Top Monday’s Station Science Schedule

 

ISS - Expedition 66 Mission patch.

March 7,2022

An array of space biology and combustion investigations topped the microgravity research program aboard the International Space Station on Monday. Life support work and cargo transfers also kept the Expedition 66 crew busy at the beginning of the week.

Living in space has been shown to impact an astronaut’s vision even after returning to Earth. NASA Flight Engineers Raja Chari and Kayla Barron worked throughout the day studying how weightlessness affects eye structure and visual function. The duo’s research efforts may help scientists develop treatments for eye conditions in space and on Earth.

Image above: The Cygnus space freighter is pictured after its capture and installation to the space station’s Unity module. Image Credit: NASA.

Astronauts are also learning how to exercise more effectively in space. The lack of gravity leads to muscle and bone loss that crews seek to avoid with daily two-hour workout sessions on the station. ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Matthias Maurer used the Tranquility module’s advanced resistive exercise device during the morning performing exercises such as bench presses, squats, and dead lifts. He wore a specialized suit for the EasyMotion study that was stimulating his muscles during the workout which may improve and lessen the duration of exercise sessions in space.

Flames and materials burn longer and differently in microgravity and scientists and engineers use the data to keep astronauts safe in outer space. NASA Flight Engineer Mark Vande Hei opened up the Combustion Integrated Rack today and configured components inside the research device. He set up the rack for the Solid Fuel Ignition and Extinction study to improve fire suppression techniques and improve spaceship safety.

International Space Station (ISS). Animation Credit: ESA

NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn worked throughout the day in Tranquility servicing components on the oxygen generation assembly. He collected samples from the life support device for analysis on the ground.

Commander Anton Shkaplerov focused on a pair of Russian experiments on Monday. He explored ways to create a sterile research environment aboard the station then researched how the human heart adapts to space. Flight Engineer Pyotr Dubrov unpacked medical kits delivered recently inside the ISS Progress 80 resupply ship.

Related links:

Expedition 66: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition66/index.html

Eye structure and visual function: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7930

Tranquility module: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/tranquility/

EasyMotion: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=8526

Combustion Integrated Rack: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Facility.html?#id=317

Solid Fuel Ignition and Extinction: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=8266

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

Image (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys Celebrates 20 Years of Discovery

 

NASA - Hubble Space Telescope patch.

Mar 7, 2022

For 20 years, the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) has unveiled intriguing new secrets of the universe, looking deep into space with unprecedented clarity from onboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Astronauts installed ACS during Hubble Servicing Mission 3B, also known as STS-109, on March 7, 2002. With its wide field of view, sharp image quality, and high sensitivity, ACS has delivered many of Hubble's most impressive images of deep space.

Former astronaut Mike Massimino, one of the two spacewalking astronauts who installed ACS, remembers, "We knew ACS would add so much discovery potential to the telescope, but I don't think anybody really understood everything it could do. It was going to unlock the secrets of the universe."

ACS has lived up to that promise. Following its installation, ACS became Hubble's most frequently used instrument. Among its many accomplishments, the camera has helped map the distribution of dark matter, detected the most distant objects in the universe, searched for massive planets and studied the evolution of clusters of galaxies.

Image Credits: NASA, ESA, STScI

"When ACS was installed on Hubble, the telescope was already famous for taking deep images of the distant universe, like the Hubble Deep Field," explained Tom Brown, Head of the Hubble Space Telescope Mission Office at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland. "However, because ACS was so powerful relative to the earlier cameras, it became routine to see very distant galaxies in the background of Hubble images, even when we were looking at nearby objects."

"The Advanced Camera for Surveys has opened our eyes to a deep and active universe for two decades." Jennifer Wiseman, NASA Hubble Senior Project Scientist.

One example of this is a spectacular disrupted galaxy called the Tadpole (UGC 10214). Astronomers photographed the Tadpole shortly after ACS installation to demonstrate the camera's capabilities. With its long tail of stars, the Tadpole looked like a runaway pinwheel firework. But what was really stunning was the backdrop – a rich tapestry of 6,000 galaxies captured by ACS.

"The Advanced Camera for Surveys represented a new paradigm for Hubble Space Telescope instruments when it was designed. It has lived up to expectations, proving to be one of Hubble's most scientifically productive instruments," said Mark Clampin, Director of the Sciences and Exploration Directorate at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Prior to joining Goddard, Clampin was the ACS Group Lead at STScI, where he worked on three Hubble Servicing Missions.

In January 2007, an electronics malfunction rendered the two most-used science channels on ACS inoperable. Thanks to engineering ingenuity, spacewalking astronauts on Hubble Servicing Mission 4 (STS-125) repaired the Wide Field Channel, the workhorse responsible for 70 percent of the pre-2007 ACS science. The High Resolution Channel, however, could not be repaired. Still, two decades into its mission, ACS continues to deliver ground-breaking science.

"The Advanced Camera for Surveys has opened our eyes to a deep and active universe for two decades," said Jennifer Wiseman, NASA's Hubble Senior Project Scientist. "We are anticipating still more discoveries with this camera, in conjunction with Hubble's other science instruments, for many years to come."

To date, ACS has taken over 125,000 pictures. These observations have spawned numerous discoveries, some of which are highlighted below.

Sonification of Hubble Ultra Deep Field (2014)

Video above: One note sounds for each galaxy when it emitted the light captured in this image. The farther away the galaxy is, the longer its light has traveled before reaching the Hubble Space Telescope. In just under a minute, we can hear back nearly 13 billion years to the farthest galaxies in that photo. The light we receive from those galaxies was emitted when the universe was only a few hundred million years old. Video Credits: NASA, ESA, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida).

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field

In undoubtedly its most important observations, ACS revealed a series of the deepest portraits of the universe ever achieved by humankind. In the original Hubble Ultra Deep Field, unveiled in 2004, ACS teamed up with Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-object Spectrometer to capture light from galaxies that existed about 13 billion years ago, some 400 to 800 million years after the Big Bang. This million-second-long exposure revealed new insights into some of the first galaxies to emerge from the so-called "dark ages," the time shortly after the big bang when the first stars reheated the cold, dark universe.

In later versions, ACS teamed with other Hubble instruments to refine the depth and reach of the original Hubble Ultra Deep Field. These portraits pushed humanity's view of the universe back to within 435 million years of the Big Bang, capturing images of the earliest objects in the cosmos. They forever changed our view of the universe and spawned innumerable collaborations.

The Frontier Fields

Following in the spirit of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, the Frontier Fields extended Hubble's reach even farther with the help of giant cosmic lenses in space. The immense gravity of massive clusters of galaxies warps the light from even-more-distant galaxies beyond, distorting and magnifying the light until those galaxies – too faint to be seen by Hubble directly – become visible. Frontier Fields combined the power of Hubble with the power of these "natural telescopes" to reveal galaxies 10 to 100 times fainter than could be seen by Hubble alone. Astronomers simultaneously used ACS for visible-light imaging and Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 for its infrared vision.

Image above: Abell 370 is a cluster with several hundred galaxies at its core. It was one of the first clusters where astronomers observed gravitational lensing and part of the Frontier Fields project. Image Credits: NASA, ESA, R. Bouwens and G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz).

Over the course of three years, Hubble devoted 840 orbits around the Earth – that's more than 1,330 hours – to six clusters of galaxies and six "parallel fields" – regions near the galaxy clusters. While these parallel fields could not be used for gravitational lensing, Hubble performed "deep field" observations on them – long looks far into the depths of space. Through the power of gravitational lensing, Hubble peered more deeply into space than ever before, while the parallel field observations expanded our knowledge of the early universe that began with the Hubble Deep Fields and Hubble Ultra Deep Field.

Helping the New Horizons Mission by Photographing Pluto

ACS captured the most detailed images ever taken of the dwarf planet Pluto years before the New Horizons flyby. The images reveal an icy, mottled, dark molasses-colored world undergoing seasonal surface and brightness changes. The ACS images were invaluable to planning the details of the New Horizons flyby in 2015 by showing which hemisphere looked more interesting for the spacecraft to take close-up snapshots during its brief encounter.

The Mysterious Fomalhaut b

In 2008, ACS made the first visible-light snapshot of what was initially thought to be a planet, dubbed Fomalhaut b, orbiting the nearby, bright southern star Fomalhaut. The diminutive-looking object appeared as a dot next to a vast ring of icy debris that ACS observed to be encircling Fomalhaut. In following years, researchers tracked the object along its trajectory. But over time the dot expanded and became fainter as it moved out of sight. Instead of a planet, it is now thought to be an expanding cloud of very fine dust particles from two icy bodies that smashed into each other, according to some researchers. The nature of the object is still being debated, and follow-up studies may unravel this mystery.

The Light Echo of V838 Monocerotis

Image above: V838 Monoceroti became the brightest star in the entire Milky Way Galaxy in January 2002. Then, just as suddenly, it faded. Image Credits: NASA, ESA.

The ACS captured an unusual phenomenon in space called a light echo, where light from an erupting star reflects or "echoes" off the dust and then travels to Earth. The echo came from the variable star V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon). In early 2002, V838 Mon increased in brightness temporarily to become 600,000 times brighter than our Sun. The reason for the eruption is still unclear.

Light from V838 Mon propagated outward through a cloud of dust surrounding the star. Because of the extra distance the scattered light traveled, it reached the Earth years after the light from the stellar outburst itself. ACS monitored the light from the stellar outburst for several years as it continued to reflect off shells of dust surrounding the star. The phenomenon is an analog of a sound produced when an Alpine yodeler's voice echoes off the surrounding mountainsides. The spectacular light echo allowed astronomers to view continuously changing cross-sections of dust surrounding the star. This is a dramatic illustration of the power of ACS and Hubble to monitor phenomena over time. The longevity and consistency of ACS is critical for this type of research.

Collision of the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxies

By measuring the tiny, sideways motion of a group of stars in our neighboring Andromeda galaxy, ACS allowed astronomers to calculate that Andromeda and our Milky Way will collide head-on in about 4 billion years from now. Andromeda, also known as M31, is now 2.5 million light-years away, but it is falling toward the Milky Way under the mutual pull of gravity between the two galaxies. The prediction is that they will merge into a single elliptical galaxy similar to the kind commonly seen throughout the universe.

Galaxy Cluster Abell 1689’s Gravitational Lens

Image above: Hubble peered straight through the center of Abell 1689, one of the most massive galaxy clusters known. Image Credits: NASA, N. Benitez, T. Broadhurst, H. Ford, M. Clampin, G. Hartig, G. Illingworth, the ACS Science Team, and ESA.

In 2002, ACS delivered an unprecedented and dramatic new view of the cosmos when it demonstrated the power of gravitational lensing. The ACS peered straight through the center of one of the most massive galaxy clusters known, called Abell 1689. The gravity of the cluster's trillion stars – plus dark matter – acts as a 2-million-light-year-wide "lens" in space. This gravitational lens bends and magnifies the light of galaxies located far behind it, distorting their shapes and creating multiple images of individual galaxies.

ACS’s sharpness, combined with this behemoth natural lens, revealed remote galaxies previously beyond even Hubble's reach. The results shed light on galaxy evolution and dark matter in space.

Mature and “Toddler” Galaxies Far Back in Time

Using ACS to look back in time nearly 9 billion years, an international team of astronomers found mature galaxies in a young universe. The galaxies are members of a cluster of galaxies that existed when the universe was only 5 billion years old. This compelling evidence that galaxies must have started forming just after the big bang was bolstered by observations made by the same team of astronomers when they peered even farther back in time. The team found galaxies a mere 1.5 billion years after the birth of the cosmos. The early galaxies reside in a still-developing cluster, the most distant proto-cluster ever found.

The ACS was built especially for studies of such distant objects. These findings further support observations and theories that galaxies formed relatively early in the history of the cosmos. The existence of such massive clusters in the early universe agrees with a cosmological model wherein clusters form from the merger of many sub-clusters in a universe dominated by cold dark matter. The precise nature of cold dark matter, however, is still not known.

Clues about the Accelerating Universe and Dark Energy

Astronomers using ACS found supernovas that exploded so long ago they provide new clues about the accelerating universe and its mysterious "dark energy." ACS can pick out the faint glow of these very distant supernovas. The ACS can then dissect their light to measure their distances, study how they fade, and confirm that they are a special type of exploding star, called a Type Ia supernova, that are reliable distance indicators. Type Ia supernovas glow at a predictable peak brightness, which makes them reliable objects for calibrating vast intergalactic distances.

In 1998, Hubble astronomers found such a far-off supernova that provided the unexpected revelation that galaxies appeared to be moving away from each other at an ever-increasing speed. They've attributed this accelerating expansion to a mysterious factor known as dark energy that is believed to permeate the universe. Since its installation, ACS has been hunting Type Ia supernovas in the early universe to provide supporting evidence.

Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Animation Credits: ESA/NASA

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, in Washington, D.C.

Related links:

Hubble Space Telescope: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/main/index.html

Hubble Ultra Deep Field: https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2004/news-2004-07.html

Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS): https://www.nasa.gov/content/hubble-space-telescope-advanced-camera-for-surveys

Images (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: ESA/NASA/Andrea Gianopoulos/GSFC/Rob Gutro/Claire Andreoli/STScI/Ann Jenkins/Ray Villard.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Russia threatens to shoot down the space station again with a demonstrative video

 

ISS - International Space Station emblem.

March 7, 2022

Russia is once again threatening the international community with abandoning and dropping the international space station on our heads. In a celebratory video created by the Russian space agency and published by Ria Novosti, you can see how they leave the ISS with its propulsion module so that it inevitably falls to earth.

Without the Russian module, which contains the engines that keep the space station in orbit, the ISS would have no way to correct its orbit and would fall uncontrollably to Earth, potentially impacting Europe, the United States, India, China or Russia itself.

Image above: When Dmitry Rogozin said the ISS does not fly over Russian in a crazy twitter rant he was wrong, it flies over plenty of Russia and all planet Earth. Image Credits: Twitter/Rogozin.

The organization that has published the Roscosmos video is Ria Novosti, a news agency originally founded as the Soviet Information Office by the USSR in 1941. It was one of the great propaganda machines of the communist regime, creating Russian Today in 2005 and Putin he reorganized it in 2013 to “increase its effectiveness as a mass communication apparatus of the state.”

Rogozin's new threat

As the NASA Watch Twitter account points out, “RIA Novosti, controlled by the Russian government, published a video on Telegram made by Roscosmos where cosmonauts say goodbye to [astronaut] Mark Vande Hei on [the international space station. they leave and then the Russian segment separates from the rest of the ISS.” For NASA Watch, which has covered the US space agency since 1996, "[Dmitry] Rogozin clearly threatens the ISS program." This is the video:

Russia threatens to shoot down the space station again

It is an operation that is not as easy as Roscosmos paints it in the video published by RIA Novosti. It is a complex disconnection process that would take some time but it would not be impossible. It is not clear what the order would be for Western astronauts in the event that Russia decided to separate from the station or what measures NASA, ESA, JAXA and the Canadian space agency would take in this eventuality.

NASA countermeasures

NASA and SpaceX — Elon Musk has already said publicly that SpaceX would be willing to “save the ISS” from the Russian threat — could launch the Interim ISS Control Module as a patch to replace the Russian module, but it would only be temporary. This module was built by the US Navy Laboratory for NASA in the late 1990s, to be used as a control unit if the Russians did not reach the ISS in time with their Zvezda module.

Image above: The interim control module developed in the late 1990s and now in storage (NASA).

This module — which is currently in storage waiting to be commissioned in a few weeks — is an adapted segment of a Titan rocket. It could only be used for a few months because it was not designed for continuous use and cannot be recharged with new fuel.

The interim module is also not powerful enough to perform maneuvers with the full mass of the ISS. In other words: the West does not have a solution right now, although it would not be unreasonable to imagine that they could quickly build one using existing components.

Rogozin continues his verbal escalation

Roscosmos — in the mouth of its leader Dmitry Rogozin — threatened to bring down the ISS at the end of February, after the first measures to punish the Russian aerospace industry by the Biden administration and the European Union. Rogozin is the administrator responsible for the decline and decrepitude of the Russian space agency since he took over the reins in 2018.

Rogozin said on Twitter that "if [the US] blocks cooperation with us, who will save the International Space Station (ISS) from uncontrolled orbit and crashing into the US or... Europe?" Rogozin hammers home with his usual threatening language: "There is also the possibility that a 500-tonne structure will fall on India and China. Do you want to threaten them with such a prospect? The ISS does not fly over Russia, therefore all risks are yours. Are you ready for it?"

Rogozin and Putin in front of a model of the failed new Roscosmos space center

More recently Rogozin personally threatened Musk on Russia Today, accusing him of siding with the Ukrainian side because he, like the rest of the West, is "chronically jealous" of Russia. On that occasion he also veiled threats to all those who help Ukraine: "Look how right now they are competing with each other to defecate in our relations, and who is going to clean up all the mess afterwards? It is very dangerous what is happening now."

This new propaganda video will serve no purpose except to cheer up Putin's loyalists and stir up the spirits of his international space partners, who may take him at his word and are already considering expelling the Russians and their modules full of outdated and dangerous technology. technical failures. In fact, it is one of the worst kept secrets that NASA has not trusted Roscosmos for years and hence its commitment to SpaceX and the rest of the players in the North American space race.

Former Astronaut Scott Kelly Tells Russian Space Chief Dmitry Rogozin to Find McDonald’s Job

Former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia’s space program Roscosmos, are caught up in a bitter feud on Twitter.

 Scott Kelly vs Dmitry Rogozin

Rogozin is no stranger to making inflammatory remarks on Twitter. Given the predicament his country’s space corporation now finds itself in — Rogozin has made sure to burn every last bridge with his comments — the new feud arguably tracks perfectly.

The feud started around the time when Rogozin gloated about removing the flags of foreign countries from a ready-to-launch rocket last week at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, one of the many recent signs of Russia actively distancing itself from cooperation with international space partners.

“Without those flags and the foreign exchange they bring in, your space program won’t be worth a damn,” Kelly tweeted in Russian at the time. “Maybe you can find a job at McDonald’s, if McDonald’s still exists in Russia.”

In one late February tweet, Kelly pleaded with Russian president Vladimir Putin to put an end to the violence.

“Mr. Putin, in 2011 I spoke with you from the ISS after my brother’s wife was shot,” he wrote at the time. “You seemed kind and sincere and asked what you could do for me.”

“You can stop this madness,” he added. “I’m afraid for the Ukrainians and for my Russian friends. Everyone will lose.”

Meanwhile, Rogozin has been embracing a very different strategy, even posting a deepfaked meme comparing Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky to Adolf Hitler. (Note from the editor: President Zelensky is of Jewish descent).

It’s a sad state of affairs. With its violent invasion of Ukraine, Russia is actively cutting itself off from the international community.

Rogozin is only stoking the fire, and severing any ties the country’s space program had left, with his comments. And feuding with former NASA astronauts likely won’t help.

Editor's note:

Nothing more to say than what I have already written in my previous notes. All I wish, is for peace to return and for these (crazy) bad leaders to end up in prison for life, where their place is in this world. Roland Berga.

Related articles:

Russia stops space cooperation with US: 'Let them fly on brooms'
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/03/russia-stops-space-cooperation-with-us.html

Russia halts launch of European satellites in retaliation for sanctions
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/02/russia-halts-launch-of-european.html

ESA statement regarding cooperation with Russia following a meeting with Member States on 28 February 2022
https://www.esa.int/Newsroom/Press_Releases/ESA_statement_regarding_cooperation_with_Russia_following_a_meeting_with_Member_States_on_28_February_2022

Head of ESA Josef Aschbacher about cooperation with Roscosmos
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/02/head-of-esa-josef-aschbacher-about.html

Russia sells Soyuz space capsule and make movie in ISS (Financial problems v/s alternative sources)
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/05/russia-sells-soyuz-space-capsule-and.html

Amur space (The failed Cosmodrome project)
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2013/04/amur-space.html

Related links:

ROSCOSMOS: https://www.roscosmos.ru/

European Space Agency (ESA): https://www.esa.int/

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA): https://www.nasa.gov/

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

Images, Video, Text, Credits: Ria Novosti/Vanguardia/Off World/Victor Tangermann/Twitter/Translation: Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga.

Peace on this crazy world. Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Solar Orbiter crosses the Earth-Sun line as it heads for the Sun

 

ESA / NASA - Solar Orbiter patch.

March 7, 2022

The ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft is speeding towards its historic first close pass of the Sun. On 14 March, the spacecraft will pass the orbit of Mercury, the scorched inner planet of our Solar System, and on 26 March it will reach closest approach to the Sun.

Today, Solar Orbiter is crossing directly between the Earth and the Sun, about halfway between our planet and its parent star, and this allows for a unique study of space weather and the Sun-Earth connection.

Solar Orbiter

The Sun releases a constant stream of particles into space. This is known as the solar wind. It carries the Sun’s magnetic field into space, where it can interact with planets to create aurorae and disrupt electrical technology.Magnetic activity on the Sun, often taking place above sunspots, can create gusts in the wind enhancing these effects.

This behaviour is known as space weather, and scientists can use today’s Earth-Sun line crossing to study it in a unique way. They will combine Solar Orbiter observations with those of other spacecraft operating nearer the Earth, such as the Hinode and IRIS spacecraft in Earth orbit, and SOHO, stationed 1.5 million kilometres away from Earth. This will allow them to join the dots of any space weather event as it crosses the 150 million kilometres between the Sun and the Earth.

Solar Orbiter’s remote sensing instruments may also be able to pinpoint the origin of any event on the solar surface. Such ‘linkage science’ is one of the main drivers behind the Solar Orbiter mission. Even if no big event takes place there is still a lot of science that can be performed in analysing the evolution of the same packet of solar wind as it travels outwards into the Solar System.

Because of its position and relative proximity to Earth, Solar Orbiter has so far been able to stay in almost continual contact, beaming back large quantities of data. The processing is happening quickly too. For example, the magnetometer data is processed and cleaned within roughly 15 minutes of it being recorded. The 15 minutes even includes the three and a half minutes that it takes for the signals to cross space between the spacecraft and the ground station.

Solar flare close up

On 10 February, ESA renamed its upcoming space weather mission from Lagrange to ESA Vigil. Launching sometime in the middle of the decade, the spacecraft will be a solar watchdog, constantly monitoring the Sun for unpredictable magnetic activity so that Earth’s infrastructure, satellites, inhabitants and space explorers can be protected from these unpredictable events.

Solar Orbiter is currently around 75 million kilometres away from the Sun. This is the same distance as the spacecraft achieved during its close pass to the Sun on 15 June 2020 but nothing compared to how close it will now get.

“From this point onwards, we are ‘entering the unknown’ as far as Solar Orbiter’s observations of the Sun are concerned,” says Daniel Müller, Solar Orbiter Project Scientist.

Solar Orbiter towards the Sun: 1 January – 2 March 2022

On 26 March, Solar Orbiter will be less than one-third of the distance from the Sun to the Earth, and it is designed to survive this close for relatively extended periods of time. It will spend from 14 March to 6 April inside the orbit of Mercury. Around perihelion, the name for closest approach to the Sun, Solar Orbiter will bring high resolution telescopes closer than ever before to the Sun.

Together with data and images from Solar Orbiter’s other instruments, these could reveal more information about the miniature flares dubbed campfires that the mission revealed in its first images.

“What I’m most looking forward to is finding out whether all these dynamical features we see in the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (coined campfires) can make their way into the solar wind or not. There are so many of them!” says Louise Harra, co-Principal Investigator for EUI based at the Physikalisch-Meteorologisches Observatorium Davos/World Radiation Center (PMOD/WRC), Switzerland.

Solar Orbiter Instruments

To do this, Solar Orbiter will use its remote sensing instruments, like EUI, to image the Sun, and its in-situ instruments to measure the solar wind as it flows past the spacecraft.

The 26 March perihelion passage is one of the major events in the mission. All ten instruments will be operating simultaneously to gather as much data as possible.

Solar Orbiter is a partnership between ESA and NASA.

Related links:

Space weather: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2018/11/What_is_space_weather

Solar Orbiter: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Solar_Orbiter

Images, Videos, Text, Credits: ESA/Solar Orbiter/EUI Team/ESA & NASA.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

CASC - Long March-2C launches seven satellites

 

CASC - China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation logo.

March 6, 2022

Long March-2C liftoff

A Long March-2C launch vehicle launched seven satellites from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, Sichuan Province, southwest China, on 5 March 2022, at 06:01 UTC (14:01 local time). According to official sources, the satellites have entered the planned orbits.

Long March-2C launches seven satellites

The six Yinhe satellites (Yinhe-02) are part of an experimental communication network called “Mini Spider Constellation” (小蜘蛛网), developed by GalaxySpace (银河航天) to verify broadband Internet technologies. The seventh spacecraft is a remote sensing 6U cubesat named “XingYuan” (星愿).

For more information about China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), visit: http://english.spacechina.com/n16421/index.html

Image, Video, Text, Credits: China Media Group(CMG)/China Central Television (CCTV)/China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC)/GalaxySpace/SciNews/Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch