SolarImpulse - First Round-The-World Solar Flight

SolarImpulse - Around the World patch.

20 January 2015

After the Solar Impulse prototype’s 8 world records, when it became the first solar airplane ever to fly through the night, between two continents, and across the United States, it is time for Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg to move on to the final phase of the adventure: the 2015 round-the-world flight.

Image above: From Abu Dhabi to the first solar flight around the world, the route map.

What better way to demonstrate the importance of the pioneering, innovatory spirit than by achieving “impossible” things with renewable energy and highlighting new solutions for environmental problems?

Image above: SI2 has 17'248 solar cells, powering four 17,4hp electric motor.

The route: Si2 will take-off from Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirate, in late February or early March and return by late July or early August 2015. The route includes stops in Muscat, Oman; Ahmedabad and Varanasi, India; Mandalay, Myanmar; and Chongqing and Nanjing, China. After crossing the Pacific Ocean via Hawaii, Si2 will fly across the Continental U.S.A. stopping in three locations – Phoenix, and New York City at JFK. A location in the Midwest will be decided dependent on weather conditions. After crossing the Atlantic, the final legs include a stop-over in Southern Europe or North Africa before arriving back in Abu Dhabi. Solar Impulse unveiled the flight path in Abu Dhabi alongside partner representatives. This included main partners Solvay, Omega, Schindler and ABB. They were also joined by official partners Altran, Bayer, Google, Swiss Re Corporate Solutions, Swisscom and Moët Hennessy alongside Solar Impulse’s host partner Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s renewable energy company.

Image above: SI2 is a single-seater airplane, for one pilot to live in for flight of 120 hours!

A great historic first: for such an adventure, as for any premiere, there are no references. We were, and will be, faced with a number of challenges, leading us to push the limits of technological, human and piloting performance.

For more information about SolarImpulse, visit: http://www.solarimpulse.com/

Images, Text, Credit: SolarImpulse.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Two new planets to the bottom of the solar system?

Astronomy - Astrophysics logo.

January 19, 2015

British and Spanish scientists have discovered that at least two stars could be "hidden" behind Neptune, they argue in a study.

The solar system could contain more planets than expected

The solar system could house two additional planets, according to British and Spanish researchers deduct the unexpected trajectory of the various objects observed behind Neptune suffer the influence of the unknown planets.

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union withdrew Pluto's planet status given its small size which relates now to the category of dwarf planets, dropping the number of planets in the solar system to eight.

A debate for decades

This has not stopped the debate stirred astronomers around the world for decades: other planets exist beyond Pluto?

In a study published in the journal "Monthly notices of the Royal astronomical society letters" the researchers provide "at least two planets" are hidden behind Neptune.

"Unexpected orbital parameters"

The researchers based their particular deduction on the study of the orbital behavior of a dozen extreme Trans-Neptunian Objects (ETNO).

They have "unexpected orbital parameters" that "suggest that unseen forces affect their orbital distribution," said astrophysicist Carlos de la Fuente Marcos, the agency of Spanish scientific information Sinc.

Neptune

Number unknown

"We believe that the most likely explanation is that other unknown planets exist beyond Neptune and Pluto," said the researcher at the Complutense University of Madrid and co-author of the study with scientists from the University of Cambridge.

"Their exact number is unknown, because our data are limited, but our calculations suggest that there are at least two planets, and probably more, on the borders of our solar system," he added.

A possible revolution in astronomy

The authors of the study, however, recognize that their theory contradicts the currently accepted model of the formation of the solar system, according to which there are no other planets in circular orbit behind Neptune.

Moreover, the calculations are based on the study of a small number of objects, but researchers ensure that other results will be published in the coming months, broadening the sample. "If confirmed, our findings could revolutionize astronomy," considers Mr. Marcos Fuente.

Related link:

Monthly notices of the Royal astronomical society letters: http://mnras.oxfordjournals.org/

Images, Text, Credits: AFP/Wikimedia/NASA&ESA Hubble/Translation: Orbiter.ch Aerospace.

Cheers, Orbiter.ch

Dawn Delivers New Image of Ceres

NASA - Dawn Mission patch.

January 19, 2015

Animation above: The Dawn spacecraft observed Ceres for an hour on Jan. 13, 2015, from a distance of 238,000 miles (383,000 kilometers). A little more than half of its surface was observed at a resolution of 27 pixels. This animated GIF shows bright and dark features.Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA/PSI.

As NASA's Dawn spacecraft closes in on Ceres, new images show the dwarf planet at 27 pixels across, about three times better than the calibration images taken in early December. These are the first in a series of images that will be taken for navigation purposes during the approach to Ceres.

Over the next several weeks, Dawn will deliver increasingly better and better images of the dwarf planet, leading up to the spacecraft's capture into orbit around Ceres on March 6. The images will continue to improve as the spacecraft spirals closer to the surface during its 16-month study of the dwarf planet.

"We know so much about the solar system and yet so little about dwarf planet Ceres. Now, Dawn is ready to change that," said Marc Rayman, Dawn's chief engineer and mission director, based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Image above: This is a raw image, taken Jan. 13, 2015, showing the dwarf planet Ceres as seen from the Dawn spacecraft on its approach. Dawn's framing camera took this image at 238,000 miles (383,000 kilometers) from Ceres. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR.

The best images of Ceres so far were taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in 2003 and 2004. This most recent images from Dawn, taken January 13, 2015, at about 80 percent of Hubble resolution, are not quite as sharp. But Dawn's images will surpass Hubble's resolution at the next imaging opportunity, which will be at the end of January.

"Already, the [latest] images hint at first surface structures such as craters," said Andreas Nathues, lead investigator for the framing camera team at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Gottingen, Germany.

Ceres is the largest body in the main asteroid belt, which lies between Mars and Jupiter. It has an average diameter of 590 miles (950 kilometers), and is thought to contain a large amount of ice. Some scientists think it's possible that the surface conceals an ocean.

Image above: This processed image, taken Jan. 13, 2015, shows the dwarf planet Ceres as seen from the Dawn spacecraft. The image hints at craters on the surface of Ceres. Dawn's framing camera took this image at 238,000 miles (383,000 kilometers) from Ceres Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA.

Dawn's arrival at Ceres will mark the first time a spacecraft has ever visited a dwarf planet.

"The team is very excited to examine the surface of Ceres in never-before-seen detail," said Chris Russell, principal investigator for the Dawn mission, based at the University of California, Los Angeles. "We look forward to the surprises this mysterious world may bring."

The spacecraft has already delivered more than 30,000 images and many insights about Vesta, the second most massive body in the asteroid belt. Dawn orbited Vesta, which has an average diameter of 326 miles (525 kilometers), from 2011 to 2012. Thanks to its ion propulsion system, Dawn is the first spacecraft ever targeted to orbit two deep-space destinations.

JPL manages the Dawn mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Corp. in Dulles, Virginia, designed and built the spacecraft. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. The Dawn framing cameras were developed and built under the leadership of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Gottingen, Germany, with significant contributions by German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Planetary Research, Berlin, and in coordination with the Institute of Computer and Communication Network Engineering, Braunschweig. The Framing Camera project is funded by the Max Planck Society, DLR, and NASA/JPL. The Italian Space Agency and the Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team.

More information about Dawn is online at http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov.

Images (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Text, Credit: NASA.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

A stormy shape-shifter

ESA - Venus Express Mission patch.

19 January 2015

Venus Express snaps swirling vortex

This ghostly puff of smoke is actually a mass of swirling gas and cloud at Venus’ south pole, as seen by the Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) aboard ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft.

Venus has a very choppy and fast-moving atmosphere – although wind speeds are sluggish at the surface, they reach dizzying speeds of around 400 km/h at the altitude of the cloud tops, some 70 km above the surface. At this altitude, Venus’ atmosphere spins round some 60 times faster than the planet itself. This is very rapid; even Earth’s fastest winds move at most about 30% of our planet’s rotation speed. Quick-moving Venusian winds can complete a full lap of the planet in just four Earth days.

Polar vortices form because heated air from equatorial latitudes rises and spirals towards the poles, carried by the fast winds. As the air converges on the pole and then sinks, it creates a vortex much like that found above the plughole of a bath. In 1979, the Pioneer Venus orbiter spotted a huge hourglass-shaped depression in the clouds, some 2000 km across, at the centre of the north polar vortex. However, other than brief glimpses from the Pioneer Venus and Mariner 10 missions in the 1970s, Venus’ south pole had not been seen in detail until ESA’s Venus Express first entered orbit in April 2006.

Visiting Venus

One of Venus Express’ first discoveries, made during its very first orbit, was confirming the existence of a huge atmospheric vortex circulation at the south pole with a shape matching the one glimpsed at the north pole.

This south polar vortex is a turbulent mix of warming and cooling gases, all surrounded by a ‘collar’ of cool air. Follow-up Venus Express observations in 2007, including this image, showed that the core of the vortex changes shape on a daily basis. Just four hours after this image the vortex looked very different and a day later it had morphed into a squashed shape unrecognisable from the eye-like structure here.

A video of the vortex, made from 10 images taken over a period of five hours, can be seen bellow. The vortex rotates with a period of around 44 hours.

Close-up view of south polar vortex

The swirling region shown in this VIRTIS image is about 60 km above the planet’s surface. Venus’ south pole is located just up and to the left of the image centre, slightly above the wispy ‘eye’ itself.

This image was obtained on 7 April 2007 at a wavelength of 5.02 micrometres. It shows thermal-infrared emission from the cloud tops; brighter regions like the ‘eye’ of the vortex are at lower altitude and therefore hotter.

For more information about Venus Express mission, visit: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Venus_Express

Images, Animation, Text, Credits: ESA/VIRTIS/INAF-IASF/Obs. de Paris-LESIA/Univ. Oxford/MPS/DLR/IDA, M. Pérez-Ayúcar & C. Wilson.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

SpaceX shares dramatic video of failed Falcon 9 landing

SpaceX logo.

16 January 2015

Elon Musk shares dramatic imagery and video of mostly successful Falcon 9 1st recovery attempt, hard landing on Drone Ship

Image above: Elon Musk commented on his tweet: Full RUD (rapid unscheduled disassembly) event. Ship is fine minor repairs. Exciting day!

Dramatic new photos and video of the daring and mostly successful attempt by Space X to land their Falcon 9 booster on an ocean-going “drone ship” were released this morning, Friday, Jan. 16, by SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk.

Musk posted the imagery online via his twitter account (@elonmusk) and they vividly show just how close his team came to achieving total success in history’s first attempt to land and recover a rocket on a tiny platform in the ocean.

Falcon 9 rocket crash on SpaceX landing barge

Musk described the attempted rocket landing last weekend as "close, but no cigar" — but this assessment doesn't really do these images justice.

The 14-story-tall Falcon 9 rocket is seen hitting the deck of the barge at a 45-degree angle as the four stabilizing fins lose hydraulic power.

The engines then fire in an attempt to restore balance but it's too late and the rocket smashes into the deck of the ship.

SpaceX landing barge docked

The four images tweeted by Musk, who cheerfully sums up the situation: "Full RUD (rapid unscheduled disassembly) event. Ship is fine minor repairs. Exciting day!"

For more information about SpaceX, visit: http://www.spacex.com/

Images, Video, Text, Credits: SpaceX/Orbiter.ch Aerospace.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

NASA, NOAA Find 2014 Warmest Year in Modern Record

NASA logo / NOAA logo.

January 16, 2015

The year 2014 ranks as Earth’s warmest since 1880, according to two separate analyses by NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists.

The 10 warmest years in the instrumental record, with the exception of 1998, have now occurred since 2000. This trend continues a long-term warming of the planet, according to an analysis of surface temperature measurements by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) in New York.

2014 Warmest Year On Record

Video above: The year 2014 now ranks as the warmest on record since 1880, according to an analysis by NASA scientists. Video Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

In an independent analysis of the raw data, also released Friday, NOAA scientists also found 2014 to be the warmest on record.

“NASA is at the forefront of the scientific investigation of the dynamics of the Earth’s climate on a global scale,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The observed long-term warming trend and the ranking of 2014 as the warmest year on record reinforces the importance for NASA to study Earth as a complete system, and particularly to understand the role and impacts of human activity.”

Since 1880, Earth’s average surface temperature has warmed by about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius), a trend that is largely driven by the increase in carbon dioxide and other human emissions into the planet’s atmosphere. The majority of that warming has occurred in the past three decades.

“This is the latest in a series of warm years, in a series of warm decades. While the ranking of individual years can be affected by chaotic weather patterns, the long-term trends are attributable to drivers of climate change that right now are dominated by human emissions of greenhouse gases,” said GISS Director Gavin Schmidt.

2014 Continues Long-Term Global Warming

Video above: This video shows a time series of five-year global temperature averages, mapped from 1880 to 2014, as estimated by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. Video Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

While 2014 temperatures continue the planet’s long-term warming trend, scientists still expect to see year-to-year fluctuations in average global temperature caused by phenomena such as El Niño or La Niña. These phenomena warm or cool the tropical Pacific and are thought to have played a role in the flattening of the long-term warming trend over the past 15 years. However, 2014’s record warmth occurred during an El Niño-neutral year.

“NOAA provides decision makers with timely and trusted science-based information about our changing world,” said Richard Spinrad, NOAA chief scientist. “As we monitor changes in our climate, demand for the environmental intelligence NOAA provides is only growing. It's critical that we continue to work with our partners, like NASA, to observe these changes and to provide the information communities need to build resiliency.”

Regional differences in temperature are more strongly affected by weather dynamics than the global mean. For example, in the U.S. in 2014, parts of the Midwest and East Coast were unusually cool, while Alaska and three western states – California, Arizona and Nevada – experienced their warmest year on record, according to NOAA.

Image above: This color-coded map displays global temperature anomaly data from 2014. Image Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

The GISS analysis incorporates surface temperature measurements from 6,300 weather stations, ship- and buoy-based observations of sea surface temperatures, and temperature measurements from Antarctic research stations. This raw data is analyzed using an algorithm that takes into account the varied spacing of temperature stations around the globe and urban heating effects that could skew the calculation. The result is an estimate of the global average temperature difference from a baseline period of 1951 to 1980.

NOAA scientists used much of the same raw temperature data, but a different baseline period. They also employ their own methods to estimate global temperatures.

GISS is a NASA laboratory managed by the Earth Sciences Division of the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland. The laboratory is affiliated with Columbia University’s Earth Institute and School of Engineering and Applied Science in New York.

NASA monitors Earth's vital signs from land, air and space with a fleet of satellites, as well as airborne and ground-based observation campaigns. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth's interconnected natural systems with long-term data records and computer analysis tools to better see how our planet is changing. The agency shares this unique knowledge with the global community and works with institutions in the United States and around the world that contribute to understanding and protecting our home planet.

The data set of 2014 surface temperature measurements is available at: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/

The methodology used to make the temperature calculation is available at: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/sources_v3/

For more information about NASA's Earth science activities, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/earthrightnow

Image (mentioned), Videos (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Steve Cole/Goddard Institute for Space Studies/Leslie McCarthy.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Beagle-2 lander found on Mars

ESA - Mars Express Mission patch.

16 January 2015

The UK-led Beagle-2 Mars lander, which hitched a ride on ESA’s Mars Express mission and was lost on Mars since 2003, has been found in images taken by a NASA orbiter at the Red Planet.

Colour image of Beagle-2 on Mars

Beagle-2 was released from its mother craft on 19 December 2003 and was due to land six days later. But nothing was heard from the lander after its scheduled touchdown, and searches by Mars Express and NASA’s Mars Odyssey mission were fruitless.

Now, over a decade later, the lander has been identified in images taken by the high-resolution camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The lander is seen partially deployed on the surface, showing that the entry, descent and landing sequence worked and it did indeed successfully land on Mars on Christmas Day 2003.

“We are very happy to learn that Beagle-2 touched down on Mars. The dedication of the various teams in studying high-resolution images in order to find the lander is inspiring,” says Alvaro Giménez, ESA’s Director of Science and Robotic Exploration.

Close-up of Beagle-2 on Mars

“Not knowing what happened to Beagle-2 remained a nagging worry. Understanding now that Beagle-2 made it all the way down to the surface is excellent news,” adds Rudolf Schmidt, ESA’s Mars Express project manager at the time.

The high resolution images were initially searched by Michael Croon, a former member of the Mars Express operations team at ESA’s Space Operations Centre, ESOC, in Darmstadt, Germany, working in parallel with members of the Beagle-2 industrial and scientific teams.

The small size of Beagle-2 – less than 2 m across when fully deployed – meant this was a painstaking endeavour, right at the limit of the resolution of cameras in orbit around Mars.

After the identification of potential counterparts to Beagle-2 in the expected landing of Isidis Planitia, a large impact basin close the martian equator, further images were obtained and analysed by the camera team, the Beagle-2 team and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Beagle-2 on Mars

The images show the lander in what appears to be a partially deployed configuration, with only one, two or at most three of the four solar panels open, and with the main parachute and what is thought to be the rear cover with its pilot/drogue parachute still attached close by.

The size, shape, colour and separation of the features are consistent with Beagle-2 and its landing components, and lie within the expected landing area at a distance of about 5 km from its centre.

Possible features have also been speculatively identified for airbags, which cushioned the landing, and possibly for the front heatshield. Further imaging will be needed to confirm the latter targets.

The partial deployment explains why no signals were ever received from the lander: full deployment of all solar panels was needed to expose the radio antenna to transmit data and receive commands from Earth.

Artist's impression of Beagle 2 lander

Unfortunately, given the partial deployment and covering of the antenna, there is no possibility of reviving Beagle-2 and recover data from it.

Nevertheless, knowing that Beagle-2 did after all land successfully on Mars adds renewed impetus to the next phase of Europe’s exploration of the Red Planet, with the launches of ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and Entry, Descent and Landing Demonstrator in 2016 and the ExoMars rover in 2018.

Notes for Editors:

For more information and reaction, see the UKSA news report: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-led-beagle-2-lander-found-on-mars

Beagle-2 was the UK’s first mission to another planet. The project was a partnership between the Open University, the University of Leicester and EADS Astrium UK (now Airbus Defence and Space). Other funding partners included ESA, the Office of Science and Technology of the Department of Trade and Industry, the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC), the Wellcome Trust, the National Space Centre and the Millennium Commission.

Professor Colin Pillinger from the Open University led the Beagle-2 project with inspirational enthusiasm; he died in May 2014. Professor George Fraser of the University of Leicester and Professor David Barnes of Aberystwyth University were also major contributors to Beagle-2, both of whom also died in 2014.

For more information about Mars Express, Visit: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Mars_Express

Mars Express overview: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Mars_Express_overview

Mars Express 10 year brochure: http://esamultimedia.esa.int/multimedia/publications/BR-312/

Images, Text, Credits: ESA/HiRISE/NASA/JPL/Parker/Leicester/Beagle 2.

Cheers, Orbiter.ch