NASA’s Van Allen Probes Begin Final Phase of Exploration in Earth's Radiation Belts

NASA - Van Allen Probes Mission patch.

Feb. 12, 2019

Two tough, resilient, NASA spacecraft have been orbiting Earth for the past six and a half years, flying repeatedly through a hazardous zone of charged particles around our planet called the Van Allen radiation belts. The twin Van Allen Probes, launched in August 2012, have confirmed scientific theories and revealed new structures and processes at work in these dynamic regions. Now, they're starting a new and final phase in their exploration.

On Feb. 12, 2019, one of the twin Van Allen Probes begins a series of orbit descent maneuvers to bring its lowest point of orbit, called perigee, just under 190 miles closer to Earth. This will bring the perigee from about 375 miles to about 190 miles — a change that will position the spacecraft for an eventual re-entry into Earth's atmosphere about 15 years down the line.

“In order for the Van Allen Probes to have a controlled re-entry within a reasonable amount of time, we need to lower the perigee,” said Nelli Mosavi, project manager for the Van Allen Probes at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, or APL, in Laurel, Maryland.  “At the new altitude, aerodynamic drag will bring down the satellites and eventually burn them up in the upper atmosphere. Our mission is to obtain great science data, and also to ensure that we prevent more space debris so the next generations have the opportunity to explore the space as well."

The other of the two Van Allen Probes will follow suit in March, also commanded by the mission operations team at APL, which designed and built the satellites.

Animation above: The twin Van Allen Probes have spent more than six years orbiting through Earth's radiation belts. Orbit changes in early 2019 will ensure that the spacecraft eventually de-orbit and disintegrate in Earth's atmosphere. Animation Credits: NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio.

The Van Allen Probes spend most of their orbit within Earth's radiation belts: doughnut-shaped bands of energized particles — protons and electrons — trapped in Earth's magnetic field. These fast-moving particles create radiation that can interfere with satellite electronics and could even pose a threat to astronauts who pass through them on interplanetary journeys. The shape, size and intensity of the radiation belts changes in response to solar activity, which makes predicting their state difficult.

Originally designated as a two-year mission — based on predictions that no spacecraft could operate much longer than that in the harsh radiation belts — these rugged spacecraft have operated without incident since 2012, and continue to enable groundbreaking discoveries about the Van Allen Belts.

Five Things about Radiation Donuts

Video above: Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

“The Van Allen Probes mission has done a tremendous job in characterizing the radiation belts and providing us with the comprehensive information needed to deduce what is going on in them,” said David Sibeck, mission scientist for the Van Allen Probes at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “The very survival of these spacecraft and all their instruments, virtually unscathed, after all these years is an accomplishment and a lesson learned on how to design spacecraft.”

Each spacecraft will be moved to a new, lower perigee of about 190 miles above Earth through a series of five two-hour engine burns. Because the Van Allen Probes spin while in orbit, the dates of these burns had to be chosen carefully. The needed geometry happens just once or twice per year: for spacecraft B, that period falls Feb. 12-22 of this year, and for spacecraft A, it's March 11-22.

The engine burns will each use about 4.4 pounds of propellant, leaving the spacecraft with enough fuel to keep their solar panels pointed at the Sun for about one more year.

“We’ll continue to operate and obtain new science in our new orbit until we are out of fuel, at which point we won’t be able to point our solar panels at the Sun to power the spacecraft systems," said Mosavi.

Image above: After performing de-orbit maneuvers in February and March 2019, the Van Allen Probes' highly elliptical orbits will gradually tighten over the next 15-25 years as the spacecraft experience atmospheric drag at perigee, the point in their orbits closest to Earth. This atmospheric drag will pull them into a circular orbit as early as 2034, at which point the spacecraft will begin to enter Earth's atmosphere and safely disintegrate. Image Credits: Johns Hopkins APL.

During their last year or so of life, the Van Allen Probes will continue to gather data on Earth's dynamic radiation belts. And their new, lower passes through Earth's atmosphere will also provide new insight into how oxygen in Earth's upper atmosphere can degrade satellite instruments — information that could help engineers design more resilient satellite instruments in the future.

“The spacecraft and instruments have given us incredible insight into spacecraft operations in a high-radiation environment,” said Mosavi. “Everyone on the mission feels a real sense of pride and accomplishment in the work we’ve done and the science we’ve provided to the world — even as we begin the de-orbiting maneuvers.”

Read more about what the Van Allen Probes have accomplished since 2012: http://vanallenprobes.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/newsArticles/article.php?id=20190210

For more on the Van Allen Probes: http://www.nasa.gov/vanallenprobes

Image (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Rob Garner/GSFC/Karen C. Fox/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab/Geoff Brown.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Spacesuits, Life Science and Robotic Assistant Work Start the Week

ISS- Expedition 58 Mission patch.

February 11, 2019

Spacesuit work, robotic assistants as well as exercise and biology studies took up the majority of the Expedition 58 crew’s schedule on Monday. The rest of February at the International Space Station will be primarily science work before March ramps up with crew and cargo missions and spacewalks.

Flight Engineer Anne McClain of NASA opened up the Fluids Integrated Rack and set up protein crystal samples inside a specialized microscope for photographing. The research is supporting a series of Biophysics experiments exploring potential pharmaceutical benefits for humans on and off Earth.

Image above: Astronaut David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency takes pictures of the Earth below from inside the International Space Station’s “window to the world,” the seven-windowed cupola. Image Credit: NASA.

After lunch, McClain spent the rest of the afternoon emptying and refilling water in the U.S. spacesuit cooling loops. She also verified the spacesuits’ ability to transfer high-speed data during usage. NASA is currently targeting the end of March to begin a trio of maintenance spacewalks.

International Space Station (ISS). Animation Credit: NASA

Canadian Space Agency astronaut David Saint-Jacques strapped himself into an exercise bike today to measure his breathing and aerobic capacity. He attached breathing tubes and sensors to himself to help doctors understand the effects of microgravity on pulmonary function and physical exertion.

In the afternoon, he set up a docking station where tiny free-flying robots can mount themselves in Japan’s Kibo laboratory module. Powered by fans and guided by a vision system, the Astrobee autonomous assistants may free up more science time for astronauts and allow mission controllers better monitoring capabilities.

Related links:

Expedition 58: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition58/index.html

Biophysics experiments: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/search.html?#q=biophysics&i=57_58&p=&c=&g=&s=

Exercise bike: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Facility.html?#id=821

Breathing: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=103

Aerobic capacity: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=644

Kibo laboratory module: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/japan-kibo-laboratory

Astrobee: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Facility.html?#id=1891

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

Taking Aeolus to the next level

ESA - AEOLUS Mission logo.

11 February 2019

Since ESA’s Aeolus satellite was launched in August, engineers and scientists have been carefully checking the information that this pioneering mission is delivering on the world’s winds – and now it’s time for the next phase.

Although our daily weather forecasts are pretty reliable, they still need to be improved further and to do this meteorologists urgently need direct measurements of the wind.

Profiling the world's winds

However, this is no easy task as extraordinary technology is needed to measure the wind from space.

Nevertheless, ESA’s Aeolus satellite has been designed to do just this. It carries the first instrument of its kind and uses a completely new approach to measuring wind.

Comprising a powerful laser, a large telescope and a very sensitive receiver, Aeolus’ ground-breaking instrument works by emitting short, powerful pulses of ultraviolet light from a laser to deliver vertical profiles that show the speed of the world’s winds in the lowermost 30 km of the atmosphere.

Since this is such novel and challenging technology, scientists and engineers have had their work cut out assessing how the satellite is functioning in orbit and checking the quality of the data it is returning.

For example, they have been comparing this new data with modelled data at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and have already established improvements to the forecast model thanks to the additional data from Aeolus.

This will have a positive impact on weather forecast accuracy in general.

ESA’s Aeolus project manager, Anders Elfving, said, “This satellite mission is certainly a challenging one, but I’m very happy to say that we are now formally out of the commissioning phase, which encompasses the first four months of a mission’s life in orbit when we do all the checks and tweaks.

Flying under Aeolus

“We still have some work to do to make sure Aeolus delivers on its promise as we have to improve on the way the data is processed taking into account the peculiarities of its instrument. And, we must remember that this is a completely new type of mission, so we are learning all the time.

“We also have field campaigns going on all over the world to help with the process of calibration and validation.

“This means measurements of the wind are being taken from the ground, from balloons and from aircraft to compare with measurements we are getting from space.

Comparing wind measurements

“At this stage, the results are expected to be announced in March.”

One recent field campaign has been carried out in Germany by the German Aerospace Center DLR. This involved flying an aircraft directly under Aeolus’ orbital path and taking more or less simultaneous measurements with an airborne version of the satellite instrument.

Related links:

Aeolus: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/Aeolus

DLR–Institute of Atmospheric Physics: https://www.dlr.de/pa/en/

ECMWF: https://www.ecmwf.int/

Images, Video, Text, Credits: ESA/ATG medialab/DLR.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

NASA’s MAVEN Spacecraft Shrinking its Mars Orbit to Prepare for Mars 2020 Rover

NASA - MAVEN Mission patch.

Feb. 11, 2019

NASA’s 4-year-old atmosphere-sniffing Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission is embarking on a new campaign today to tighten its orbit around Mars. The operation will reduce the highest point of the MAVEN spacecraft’s elliptical orbit from 3,850 to 2,800 miles (6,200 to 4,500 kilometers) above the surface and prepare it to take on additional responsibility as a data-relay satellite for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover, which launches next year.

“The MAVEN spacecraft has done a phenomenal job teaching us how Mars lost its atmosphere and providing other important scientific insights on the evolution of the Martian climate,” said Jim Watzin, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program. “Now we’re recruiting it to help NASA communicate with our forthcoming Mars rover and its successors.”

While MAVEN’s new orbit will not be drastically shorter than its present orbit, even this small change will significantly improve its communications capabilities. “It’s like using your cell phone,” said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator from the University of Colorado, Boulder. “The closer you are to a cell tower, the stronger your signal.”

A strong telecommunications antenna signal is not the only benefit of a tighter orbit. Coming in nearly 1,000 miles (about 1,500 kilometers) closer also will allow the MAVEN orbiter to circle Mars more frequently — 6.8 orbits per Earth day versus 5.3 previously — and thus communicate with the Mars rovers more frequently. While not conducting relay communications, MAVEN will continue to study the structure and composition of the upper atmosphere of Mars. “We’re planning a vigorous science mission far into the future,” Jakosky said. 

The MAVEN mission was designed to last two years in space, but the spacecraft is still operating normally. With the mission managing its fuel to last through 2030, NASA plans to use MAVEN's relay capability as long as possible. The MAVEN orbiter carries an ultra high-frequency radio transceiver — similar to transceivers carried on other Mars orbiters ­­— that allows it to relay data between Earth and rovers or landers on Mars. The MAVEN spacecraft already has served occasionally as NASA’s communication liaison with the Curiosity rover.

Over the next few months, MAVEN engineers will use a navigation technique known as aerobraking — like applying the brakes on a car — to take advantage of the drag of the Red Planet’s upper atmosphere to slow the spacecraft down gradually, orbit by orbit. This is the same drag you would feel if you put your hand out of the window of a moving car.

Image above: Aerobraking plan for MAVEN. (left) Current MAVEN orbit around Mars: 6,200 kilometers (~3,850 miles) at highest altitude, and an orbit period of about 4.5 hours. (center) Aerobraking process: MAVEN performs a series of “deep dip” orbits approaching to within about 125 kilometers (~78 miles) of Mars at lowest altitude, causing drag from the atmosphere to slow down the spacecraft. Over roughly 360 orbits spanning 2.5 months, this technique reduces the spacecraft’s altitude to about 4,500 kilometers (~2,800 miles) and its orbit period to about 3.5 hours. (right) Post-aerobraking orbit, with reduced altitude and shorter orbit period.
Image Credits: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio/Kel Elkins and Dan Gallagher.

Based on the tracking of the spacecraft by the navigation team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and at Lockheed Martin in Littleton, Colorado, engineers will begin carefully lowering the lowest part of the spacecraft’s orbit into the Martian upper atmosphere over the next couple of days by firing its thrusters. The spacecraft will circle Mars at this lower altitude about 360 times over the next 2.5 months, slowing down slightly with each pass through the atmosphere. While it may seem like a time-consuming process, aerobraking is the most efficient way to change the spacecraft’s trajectory, said Jakosky: “The effect is the same as if we fired our thrusters a little bit on every orbit, but this way, we use very little fuel.”

Image above: This illustration shows the MAVEN spacecraft and the limb of Mars. Image Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Fortunately, the team has ample experience operating the spacecraft at these lower altitudes. On nine previous occasions throughout the mission, MAVEN engineers have dipped the orbiter into the same altitude targets for aerobraking to take measurements of the Martian atmosphere. As a result of these “deep dips” and other measurements, NASA has learned that solar wind and radiation had stripped Mars of most of its atmosphere, changing the planet’s early climate from warm and wet to the dry environment we see today. MAVEN also discovered two new types of auroras on Mars and the presence of charged metal atoms in its upper atmosphere that tell us that a lot of debris is hitting Mars that may affect its climate.

MAVEN’s principal investigator is based at the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Boulder. The university provided two science instruments and leads science operations, as well as education and public outreach, for the mission. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the MAVEN project and provided two science instruments for the mission. Lockheed Martin built the spacecraft and is responsible for mission operations. The University of California at Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory also provided four science instruments for the mission. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, provides navigation and Deep Space Network support, as well as the Electra telecommunications relay hardware and operations.

For more information on the MAVEN mission, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/maven or http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/maven/

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Svetlana Shekhtman/GFSC/Nancy Jones/Lonnie Shekhtman.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

NASA Finds Possible Second Impact Crater Under Greenland Ice

NASA - Operation IceBrige patch.

Feb. 11, 2019

A NASA glaciologist has discovered a possible second impact crater buried under more than a mile of ice in northwest Greenland.

NASA Finds Second Massive Greenland Crater

Video above: Just 114 miles (183,46 km) from the newly-found Hiawatha impact crater under the ice of northwest Greenland, lies a possible second impact crater. The 22-mile wide feature would be the second crater found under an ice sheet, and if confirmed, would be the 22nd-largest crater on Earth. A NASA-led team discovered the feature using satellite data of the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet as well as radar measurements from NASA’s airborne campaign Operation IceBridge. Video Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Jefferson Beck.

This follows the finding, announced in November 2018, of a 19-mile-wide crater beneath Hiawatha Glacier – the first meteorite impact crater ever discovered under Earth’s ice sheets. Though the newly found impact sites in northwest Greenland are only 114 miles apart, at present they do not appear to have formed at the same time.

If the second crater, which has a width of over 22 miles, is ultimately confirmed as the result of a meteorite impact, it will be the 22nd largest impact crater found on Earth.

"We’ve surveyed the Earth in many different ways, from land, air and space – it’s exciting that discoveries like these are still possible," said Joe MacGregor, a glaciologist with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who participated in both findings.

Before the discovery of the Hiawatha impact crater, scientists generally assumed that most evidence of past impacts in Greenland and Antarctica would have been wiped away by unrelenting erosion by the overlying ice. Following the finding of that first crater, MacGregor checked topographic maps of the rock beneath Greenland’s ice for signs of other craters. Using imagery of the ice surface from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instruments aboard NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites, he soon noticed a circular pattern some 114 miles to the southeast of Hiawatha Glacier. The same circular pattern also showed up in ArcticDEM, a high-resolution digital elevation model of the entire Arctic derived from commercial satellite imagery.

Image above: Possible Second Impact Crater Found Under Greenland. Image Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Jefferson Beck.

"I began asking myself ‘Is this another impact crater? Do the underlying data support that idea?’," MacGregor said. "Helping identify one large impact crater beneath the ice was already very exciting, but now it looked like there could be two of them."

MacGregor reported the discovery of this second possible crater in Geophysical Research Letters on Feb.11.

To confirm his suspicion about the possible presence of a second impact crater, MacGregor studied the raw radar images that are used to map the topography of the bedrock beneath the ice, including those collected by NASA’s Operation IceBridge. What he saw under the ice were several distinctive features of a complex impact crater: a flat, bowl-shaped depression in the bedrock that was surrounded by an elevated rim and centrally located peaks, which form when the crater floor equilibrates post-impact. Though the structure isn’t as clearly circular as the Hiawatha crater, MacGregor estimated the second crater’s diameter at 22.7 miles. Measurements from Operation IceBridge also revealed a negative gravity anomaly over the area, which is characteristic of impact craters.

"The only other circular structure that might approach this size would be a collapsed volcanic caldera," MacGregor said. "But the areas of known volcanic activity in Greenland are several hundred miles away. Also, a volcano should have a clear positive magnetic anomaly, and we don’t see that at all."

Although the newly found impact craters in northwest Greenland are only 114 miles apart, they do not appear to have been formed at the same time. From the same radar data and ice cores that had been collected nearby, MacGregor and his colleagues determined that the ice in the area was at least 79,000 years old. The layers of ice were smooth, suggesting the ice hadn’t been strongly disturbed during that time. This meant that either the impact happened more than 79,000 years ago or — if it took place more recently —  any impact-disturbed ice had long ago flowed out of the area and been replaced by ice from farther inland.

The meteorite that caused the crater was almost 1km wide. Illustration: Euronews

The researchers then looked at rates of erosion: they calculated that a crater of that size would have initially been more half a mile deep between its rim and floor, which is an order of magnitude greater than its present depth. Taking into account a range of plausible erosion rates, they calculated that it would have taken anywhere between roughly a hundred thousand years and a hundred million years for the ice to erode the crater to its current shape —  the faster the erosion rate, the younger the crater would be within the plausible range, and vice versa.

"The ice layers above this second crater are unambiguously older than those above Hiawatha, and the second crater is about twice as eroded," MacGregor said. "If the two did form at the same time, then likely thicker ice above the second crater would have equilibrated with the crater much faster than for Hiawatha."

To calculate the statistical likelihood that the two craters were created by unrelated impact events, MacGregor’s team used recently published estimates that leverage lunar impact rates to better understand Earth’s harder-to-detect impact record. By employing computer models that can track the production of large craters on Earth, they found that the abundance of said craters that should naturally form close to one another, without the need for a twin impact, was consistent with Earth’s cratering record.

"This does not rule out the possibility that the two new Greenland craters were made in a single event, such as the impact of a well separated binary asteroid, but we cannot make a case for it either," said William Bottke, a planetary scientist with the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and co-author of both MacGregor’s paper and the new lunar impact record study.

Indeed, two pairs of unrelated but geographically close craters have already been found in Ukraine and Canada, but the ages of the craters in the pairs are different from one another.

"The existence of a third pair of unrelated craters is modestly surprising but we don’t consider it unlikely," MacGregor said. "On the whole, the evidence we’ve assembled indicates that this new structure is very likely an impact crater, but presently it looks unlikely to be a twin with Hiawatha."

Related article:

Huge impact crater found under Greenland Hiawatha glacier
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2018/11/huge-impact-crater-found-under.html

Related links:

IceBridge: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/icebridge/index.html

Earth Research Findings: https://www.nasa.gov/subject/7782/earth-research-findings

Asteroids: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/main/index.html

Images (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Sara Blumberg/Earth Science News Team, by Maria-José Viñas.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

A Dune Field Near Nili Patera, The Red Planet's Layered History

NASA - Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) logo.

Feb. 11, 2019

A Dune Field Near Nili Patera

In this image many sand dunes are visible. They have an elongated crescent form and are called "barchan dunes." They are formed by the continuous action of the wind blowing in the same direction.

The orientation of these dunes tells us that the prevailing wind blows from right to left (east to west). The wind is continuously moving sand grains up the longer dune slope, towards the top. The small ripples on the slope are caused by this movement. When the sand grains arrive at the top, they fall down the steeper and shorter slope, which as a consequence, has no ripples. It is this gradual sand movement that causes the dunes to slowly move over time.

The map is projected here at a scale of 25 centimeters (9.8 inches) per pixel. (The original image scale is 27.3 centimeters [10.7 inches] per pixel [with 1 x 1 binning] to 54.5 centimeters [21.5 inches] per pixel [with 2 x 2 binning].) North is up.

The Red Planet's Layered History

The geologic history of a planet is written in its layers. Erosion of the surface reveals several shades of light toned layers, likely sedimentary deposits, as shown in this image taken by the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The most recent geologic features are the narrow sand dunes snaking across the top of all the rocks.

HiRISE operates in visible wavelengths, the same as human eyes, but with a telescopic lens that produces images at resolutions never before seen in planetary exploration missions. These high-resolution images enable scientists to distinguish 1-meter-size (about 3-foot-size) objects on Mars and to study the morphology (surface structure) in a much more comprehensive manner than ever before.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)

The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO): http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/main/index.html

Images, Text, Credits: NASA/Tony Greicius/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

A Swiss from Geneva prepares to a spaceflight

Space Tourism logo.

Feb. 11, 2019

Boris Otter has a crazy bet: to become the second Swiss to go into space. But as a tourist. This aviation enthusiast is continuing his cosmonaut training at the Star  City, near Moscow. He plans to realize his dream this year with a private company. It remains to raise 250,000 francs.

Boris Otter. Image Credit: Boris Otter

His career as a simulator pilot at Skyguide, Boris Otter is particularly fond. But his dream is much more ambitious. When he evokes it, his speed of speech accelerates: "I am convinced that 2019 will be the year of space tourism thanks to companies like Virgin Galactic. I pursued a cosmonaut training by going to Moscow's Star City for the second time to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills that would enable me to become the second Swiss in space after Claude Nicollier. "

At the age of 49, this inhabitant of Grand-Lancy demonstrated his unwavering determination to carry out his spatial ambitions: "The strong accelerations, the weightlessness, the wearing of the Sokol space suit, the rotary chair, the spatial food , the simulation of spacewalk in the hydrolab (swimming pool containing a model of a part of the International Space Station), all these formations are accessible in Russia and I was able to follow them or am on the verge of make."

Financing in progress

Only obstacle to realize this spatial dream, to find the financings. Because a flight in space, when possible - with Virgin Galactic for example - should cost around 250,000 francs.

Virgin Galactic space-plane. Image Credit: Virgin Galactic

A substantial amount that he hopes to gather in the coming months. "I have several ideas. The first would be to be sponsored by one or more luxury watch brands. The steps are underway. Otherwise, I am importing space food from Russia to introduce these atypical meals to the people of Geneva. But it requires many permissions, you have to be patient to achieve your goals. "

Iron health

Another essential condition of a journey in space, to be in good health. On this side, the Genevois is no problem: "A double medical visit is performed upon arrival at the Cité des Etoiles. The doctors in charge of allowing you, or not, to carry out your training program are the same ones that allow cosmonauts to take off for space. They control your temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, toenails, back and do not negotiate too long if your pressure is too high, it is eliminatory for certain activities! Fortunately, I passed these tests without a hitch. "

It remains to collect a quarter of a million francs and wait for the first flights of space tourists ...

Reaction of Claude Nicollier, the only Swiss to have gone into space

"I would not call it a trip into space"

Astronaut Claude Nicollier. Image Credits: NASA/ESA

"I am in favor of space tourism in general, it is a way of offering the possibility to non-professional astronauts to experience some of the extraordinary sensations of spaceflight", explains the astrophysicist Vaudois Claude Nicollier, the only Swiss to have gone into space. Who continues: "That said, space flights for tourists planned in the coming years are not real trips into space. The mission profile is to climb almost vertically with a launcher or a space plane, just to exceed 100 km altitude with about four minutes of weightlessness, then down to Earth. It is rather a crossing of the very high atmosphere and a short excursion beyond the border of space! The climb will be impressive, the view will be beautiful with black sky in daylight and clear perception of the rotundity of the Earth, and the four minutes of weightlessness will be a magnificent sensory discovery, but rather brief ... "

It remains to be seen whether the passengers of such flights will become astronauts? "I do not know, and I'm sure there will be heated discussions on this subject," says Claude Nicollier. Before saying: "For me, and with all due respect for those who will try the adventure, they will not really be astronauts in the true sense, but rather what is designated in English under the name of participating spaceflight. "

"To know how to remain humble"

What would you recommend to them? "Have fun, bring back a lot of photos (not just selfies), help promote the value of human spaceflight and share their emotions with loved ones, the public and with children! It is also important to remain humble after such an experience. The very great cosmonauts-astronauts like Yuri Gagarin and Neil Armstrong were impressive in their humility. "

Boris Otter: bio express

An avid aeronautic enthusiast, Boris Otter began his journey to space by trying his weightless flight in Russia in 2016. A first experience of which he returned enthusiastically. It was at this moment that this 49-year-old resident of Grand-Lancy decided to go even further by enrolling in a cosmonaut training at the Cité des Etoiles north-east of Moscow in the city of shchyolkovo. A course which ended at the beginning of January of this year.

Editor note:

Indeed, Claude Nicollier rightly, we must make a difference between an astronaut (a professional who has done a professional formation and not just selected training) and a paying passenger, more than just parabolic flights and no orbital flights, an astronaut or cosmonaut (or taikonauts for the Chinese) must have made an orbital flight (minimum a complete orbit of the Earth) to claim this title.

Related article on GHI (in French): https://www.ghi.ch/le-journal/la-une/un-genevois-se-prepare-conquerir-lespace

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: GHI/Fabio Bonavita/Giancarlo Mariani/Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch