Say Cheese on Mars: Perseverance’s Selfie With Ingenuity

 

NASA - Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Mission logo.

Apr 7, 2021

NASA’s newest Mars rover used a camera on the end of its robotic arm to snap this shot of itself with the Ingenuity helicopter nearby.

Image above: NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took a selfie with the Ingenuity helicopter, seen here about 13 feet (3.9 meters) from the rover. This image was taken by the WASTON camera on the rover’s robotic arm on April 6, 2021, the 46th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took a selfie with the Ingenuity helicopter, seen here about 13 feet (4 meters) away in this image from April 6, 2021, the 46th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Perseverance captured the image using a camera called WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering), part of the SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) instrument, located at the end of the rover’s robotic arm.

Perseverance’s selfie with Ingenuity was stitched together from 62 individual images taken while the rover was looking at the helicopter, then again while it was looking at the WATSON camera. Videos explaining how NASA’s Perseverance and Curiosity rovers take their selfies can be found here:

https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8631/nasas-curiosity-mars-rover-takes-a-new-selfie-before-record-climb/?site=msl

Once the team is ready to attempt the first flight, Perseverance will receive and relay to Ingenuity the final flight instructions from JPL mission controllers. Several factors will determine the precise time for the flight, including modeling of local wind patterns informed by measurements taken by the MEDA (Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer) instrument aboard Perseverance. Ingenuity will run its rotors to 2,537 rpm and, if all final self-checks look good, lift off. After climbing at a rate of about 3 feet per second (1 meter per second), the helicopter will hover at 10 feet (3 meters) above the surface for up to 30 seconds. Then, Ingenuity will descend and touch back down on the Martian surface.

Mars Perseverance Rover rolls back after dropping Ingenuity helicopter. Animation Credits: NASA/JPL

Several hours after the first flight has occurred, Perseverance will downlink Ingenuity’s first set of engineering data and, possibly, images and video from the rover’s Navigation Cameras and Mastcam-Z, a pair of zoomable cameras. From the data downlinked that first evening after the flight, the Ingenuity team expects to be able to determine if its first attempt to fly at Mars was a success. Flight test results will be discussed by the Ingenuity team in a media conference that same day.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory built and manages operations of Perseverance and Ingenuity for the agency. Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages JPL for NASA. WATSON was built by Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) in San Diego, and is operated jointly by MSSS and JPL.

Image above: NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter is seen in a close-up taken by Mastcam-Z, a pair of zoomable cameras aboard the Perseverance rover. This image was taken on April 5, 2021, the 45th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU.

The Mars helicopter technology demonstration activity is supported by NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, and Space Technology Mission Directorate.

A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet's geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).

Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

Related links:

Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC): https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8678/the-detective-aboard-nasas-perseverance-rover/

Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA): https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/mars-is-getting-a-new-robotic-meteorologist

For more about Perseverance: http://www.nasa.gov/perseverance

For more about Ingenuity: https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/

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

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

NASA’s Odyssey Orbiter Marks 20 Historic Years of Mapping Mars

 

NASA - 2001 Mars Odyssey Mission patch.

Apr 7, 2021

For two decades, the longest-lived spacecraft at the Red Planet has helped locate water ice, assess landing sites, and study the planet’s mysterious moons.

2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft. Animation Credits: NASA/JPL

NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft launched 20 years ago on April 7, making it the oldest spacecraft still working at the Red Planet. The orbiter, which takes its name from Arthur C. Clarke’s classic sci-fi novel “2001: A Space Odyssey” (Clarke blessed its use before launch), was sent to map the composition of the Martian surface, providing a window to the past so scientists could piece together how the planet evolved.

But it’s done far more than that, uncovering troves of water ice, serving as a crucial communications link for other spacecraft, and helping to pave the way not just for safer landings but also future astronauts.

Here’s a partial list of Odyssey’s many accomplishments:

Image above: At 11:02 a.m. EDT on April 7, 2001, crowds watch a Boeing Delta II rocket lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, carrying NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft into space on its seven-month journey to Mars. Image Credit: NASA.

Mapping Martian Ice

Odyssey’s two decades of data have been a boon for researchers working to determine where water ice is locked up on the planet. Understanding the water cycle on Mars – a planet that was once much wetter, like Earth – offers insights into the way it has changed over time: How does water move around the planet today? Does the tilt of the planet affect where ice is stable? Odyssey’s discoveries have helped chip away at those questions.

“Before Odyssey, we didn’t know where this water was stored on the planet,” said Project Scientist Jeffrey Plaut of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which leads the Odyssey mission. “We detected it for the first time from orbit and later confirmed it was there using the Phoenix lander.”

Stores of water ice are also needed to help astronauts survive on Mars and to provide fuel for their spacecraft. (In fact, astronauts were the focus of an instrument aboard Odyssey that measured how much space radiation they would have to contend with before it stopped working in 2003.) The orbiter finds the water ice using its gamma-ray spectrometer (GRS) detector, which has proven to be a capable hunter of near-surface hydrogen – a proxy for water ice. The GRS measures the amount of different elements on the Martian surface and also serves as a node in NASA’s interplanetary gamma-ray burst (GRB) detection network, which identifies source locations of GRB’s for follow-up astronomical observations.

Image above: Six views of the Martian moon Phobos captured by THEMIS as of March 2020. The camera measures surface temperature day and night. Studying each moon’s thermophysics helps scientists determine the properties of materials on their surfaces, just as they did for the Martian surface. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/NAU.

What Mars Is Made Of

Look at almost any mapping study of the Martian surface, and it probably includes Odyssey data. For many years, the most complete global maps of Mars were made using Odyssey’s infrared camera, called the Thermal Emission Imaging System, or THEMIS. The camera measures the surface temperature day and night, allowing scientists to determine what physical materials, such as rock, sand, or dust, exist. Its data reveals the presence of these materials based on how they heat up or cool down over the course of a Martian day.

The net effect of two decades’ worth of all that mapping? Scientists haven’t just used the data to map valley networks and craters, they’ve also been able to spot sandstone, iron-rich rocks, salts, and more – findings that help lend deeper insight to Mars’ story. “It’s hard to overstate how the THEMIS global map has filled gaps in our knowledge,” said Laura Kerber of JPL, Odyssey’s deputy project scientist.

Image above: Pictures taken between 2002 and 2004 by Odyssey’s THEMIS imager up this wind-sculpted sea of dark dunes that covers an area as big as Texas at Mars’ northern polar cap. In this enhanced-color image, cooler areas have in bluer tints, while warmer features are depicted in yellows and oranges. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU.

Safer Landings

THEMIS has sent back more than 1 million images since it began circling Mars. The images and maps it’s produced highlight the presence of hazards, such as topographic features and boulders, but they also help ensure the safety of future astronauts by showing the location of resources such as water ice. This aids the Mars science community and NASA in deciding where to send landers and rovers – including the Perseverance rover, which touched down on Feb. 18, 2021.

Image above: This THEMIS image shows a double-bowl crater. If a meteorite breaks in two shortly before hitting the surface, the typical bowl shape of a single impact crater gains a twin. The two circular blast regions intersect, creating a straight wall separating the pair of craters, while “wings” of ejected debris shoot out to the side. The image covers an area 8 miles (13 kilometers) wide. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU.

Routine Calls Home

From early on, Odyssey has served as a long-distance call center for NASA’s rovers and landers, sending their data back to Earth as part of the Mars Relay Network. The idea of Mars relay goes back to the 1970’s, when the two Viking landers sent science data and images through an orbiter back to Earth. An orbiter can carry radios or antennas capable of sending back more data than a surface spacecraft. But Odyssey made the process routine when it began conveying data to and from NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity rovers.

“When the twin rovers landed, the success of relaying data using UHF frequency was a gamechanger,” said Chris Potts of JPL, Odyssey’s mission manager.

Each day, the rovers could go somewhere new and send fresh images back to Earth. Through a relay like Odyssey, scientists got more data sooner, while the public got more Mars images to be excited over. Odyssey has supported over 18,000 relay sessions. These days, it shares the communications task with NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and MAVEN, along with the ESA (European Space Agency) Trace Gas Orbiter.

Candy-Colored Moons

Odyssey has done such a thorough job of studying the Martian surface that scientists have started turning its THEMIS camera to capture unique views of Mars’ moons Phobos and Deimos. As with the Martian surface, studying each moon’s thermophysics helps scientists determine the properties of materials on their surfaces. Such information can offer glimmers into their past: It’s unclear whether the moons are captured asteroids or chunks of Mars, blasted off the surface by an ancient impact.

Future missions, like the Japanese Space Agency’s Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) spacecraft, will seek to land on these moons. In the distant future, missions might even create bases on them for astronauts. And if they do, they’ll rely on data from an orbiter that began its odyssey at the start of the millennium.

THEMIS was built and is operated by Arizona State University in Tempe. Odyssey's Gamma Ray Spectrometer was provided by the University of Arizona, Tucson, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Russian Space Research Institute. The prime contractor for the Odyssey project, Lockheed Martin Space in Denver, developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena.

For more about Odyssey, visit:

https://mars.nasa.gov/odyssey/

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/odyssey/index.html

NASA’s interplanetary gamma-ray burst (GRB) detection network: https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/missions/ipn.html

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

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Trio of Fast-Spinning Brown Dwarfs May Reveal a Rotational Speed Limit

 

NASA - Spitzer Space Telescope patch.

Apr 7, 2021

Brown dwarfs, sometimes known as “failed stars,” can spin at upwards of 200,000 mph, but there may be a limit to how fast they can go.

Image above: The faster a brown dwarf spins, the narrower the different-colored atmospheric bands on it likely become, as shown in this illustration. Some brown dwarfs glow in visible light, but they are typically brightest in infrared wavelengths, which are longer than what human eyes can see. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Using data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists have identified the three fastest-spinning brown dwarfs ever found. More massive than most planets but not quite heavy enough to ignite like stars, brown dwarfs are cosmic in-betweeners. And though they aren’t as well known as stars and planets to most people, they are thought to number in the billions in our galaxy.

In a study appearing in the Astronomical Journal, the team that made the new speed measurements argue that these three rapid rotators could be approaching a spin speed limit for all brown dwarfs, beyond which they would break apart. The rapidly rotating brown dwarfs are all about the same diameter as Jupiter but between 40 and 70 times more massive. They each rotate about once per hour, while the next-fastest known brown dwarfs rotate about once every 1.4 hours and Jupiter spins once every 10 hours. Based on their size, that means the largest of the three brown dwarfs whips around at more than 60 miles per second (100 kilometers per second), or about 220,000 miles per hour (360,000 kilometers per hour).

The speed measurements were made using data from Spitzer, which NASA retired in January 2020. (The brown dwarfs were discovered by the ground-based Two Micron All Sky Survey, or 2MASS, which ran until 2001.) The team then corroborated their unusual findings through observations with the ground-based Gemini North and Magellan telescopes.

NASA’s Spitzer Measures Fastest Spinning Brown Dwarf

Video above: NASA Spitzer Space Telescope has identified the fastest-spinning brown dwarf known. Brown dwarfs are generally more massive than planets but not massive enough to become stars. These cosmic in-betweeners are plentiful throughout the galaxy, but many mysteries about them remain. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Brown dwarfs, like stars or planets, are already spinning when they form. As they cool down and contract, they spin faster, just like when a spinning ice skater draws her arms into her body. Scientists have measured the spin rates of about 80 brown dwarfs, and they vary from less than two hours (including the three new entries) to tens of hours.

With so much variety among the brown dwarf speeds already measured, it surprised the authors of the new study that the three fastest brown dwarfs ever found have almost the exact same spin rate (about one full rotation per hour) as each other. This cannot be attributed to the brown dwarfs having formed together or being at the same stage in their development, because they are physically different: One is a warm brown dwarf, one is cold, and the other falls between them. Since brown dwarfs cool as they age, the temperature differences suggest these brown dwarfs are different ages.

The authors aren’t chalking this up to coincidence. They think the members of the speedy trio have all reached a spin speed limit, beyond which a brown dwarf could break apart.

All rotating objects generate centripetal force, which increases the faster the object spins. On a carnival ride, this force can threaten to throw riders from their seats; in stars and planets, it can tear the object apart. Before a spinning object breaks apart, it will often start bulging around its midsection as it deforms under the pressure. Scientists call this oblation. Saturn, which rotates once every 10 hours like Jupiter, has a perceptible oblation. Based on the known characteristics of the brown dwarfs, they likely have similar degrees of oblation, according to the paper authors.

Image above: All spinning objects, from carousels to planets, generate centripetal force. If a planet rotates too fast, that force can pull it apart. Before that happens, the planet will experience “flattening,” or bulging around its midsection, as seen in this illustration of a brown dwarf, Jupiter, and Saturn.
Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Reaching the Speed Limit

Considering that brown dwarfs tend to speed up as they age, are these objects regularly exceeding their spin speed limit and being torn apart? In other rotating cosmic objects, like stars, there are there natural braking mechanisms that stop them from destroying themselves. It’s not clear yet if similar mechanisms exist in brown dwarfs.

“It would be pretty spectacular to find a brown dwarf rotating so fast it is tossing its atmosphere out into space,” said Megan Tannock, a Ph.D. candidate at Western University in London, Ontario, and lead author on the new study. “But so far, we haven’t found such a thing. I think that must mean that either something is slowing the brown dwarfs down before they hit that extreme or that they can’t get that fast in the first place. The result of our paper supports some sort of limit on the rotation rate, but we’re not sure of the reason yet.”

Image above: Brown dwarfs are more massive than most planets but not quite as massive as stars. Generally speaking, they have between 13 and 80 times the mass of Jupiter. A brown dwarf becomes a star if its core pressure gets high enough to start nuclear fusion. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

The maximum spin rate of any object is determined not only by its total mass but by how that mass is distributed. That’s why, when very rapid spin rates are involved, understanding a brown dwarf’s interior structure becomes increasingly important: The material inside likely shifts and deforms in ways that could change how fast the object can spin. Similar to gas planets such as Jupiter and Saturn, brown dwarfs are composed mostly of hydrogen and helium.

But they are also significantly denser than most giant planets. Scientists think the hydrogen in the core of a brown dwarf is under such tremendous pressures that it starts behaving like a metal rather than an inert gas: It has free-floating conducting electrons, much like a copper conductor. That changes how heat is conducted through the interior and with very fast spin rates, may also affect how the mass inside an astronomical object is distributed.

“This state of hydrogen, or any gas under such extreme pressure, is still very enigmatic,” said Stanimir Metchev, co-author on the paper and the Canada Research Chair in Extrasolar Planets at the Institute for Earth and Space Exploration at Western University. “It is extremely challenging to reproduce this state of matter even in the most advanced high-pressure physics laboratories.”

Physicists use observations, laboratory data, and mathematics to create models of what brown dwarf interiors should look like and how they should behave, even under extreme conditions. But current models show that the maximum brown dwarf spin speed should be about 50% to 80% faster than the one-hour rotation period described in the new study. 

Spitzer Space Telescope. Animation Credit: NASA

“It is possible that these theories don’t have the full picture yet,” said Metchev. “Some unappreciated factor may be coming into play that doesn’t let the brown dwarf spin faster.” Additional observations and theoretical work may yet reveal whether there’s some braking mechanism that stops brown dwarfs from self-destruction and whether there are brown dwarfs spinning even faster in the darkness.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech, managed Spitzer mission operations for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Science operations were conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at IPAC at Caltech. Spacecraft operations were based at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado. The Spitzer data archive is housed at the Infrared Science Archive at IPAC at Caltech in Pasadena, California. The international Gemini Observatory is a Program of the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab.

For more information about NASA’s Spitzer mission go to:

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/spitzer-space-telescope

https://www.ipac.caltech.edu/project/spitzer

Images (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Tony Greicius/JPL/Calla Cofield.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Completes Final Tour of Asteroid Bennu

 

NASA - OSIRIS-REx Mission patch.

Apr 7, 2021

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx completed its last flyover of Bennu around 6 a.m. EDT (4 a.m. MDT) April 7 and is now slowly drifting away from the asteroid; however, the mission team will have to wait a few more days to find out how the spacecraft changed the surface of Bennu when it grabbed a sample of the asteroid.

Image above: This image shows a top-down view of asteroid Bennu, with a portion of the asteroid’s equatorial ridge and northern hemisphere illuminated. It was taken by the PolyCam camera on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on March 4, 2021, from a distance of about 186 miles (300 km). The spacecraft’s cameras are pointed directly at Bennu’s north pole. Two large equatorial craters are visible on the asteroid’s edge (center and center left). The image was obtained during the mission’s Post-TAG Operations phase, as the spacecraft slowly approached Bennu in preparation for a final observational flyby on April 7. Image Credits: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona.

The OSIRIS-REx team added this flyby to document surface changes resulting from the Touch and Go (TAG) sample collection maneuver Oct. 20, 2020. “By surveying the distribution of the excavated material around the TAG site, we will learn more about the nature of the surface and subsurface materials along with the mechanical properties of the asteroid,” said Dr. Dante Lauretta, principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx at the University of Arizona.

During the flyby, OSIRIS-REx imaged Bennu for 5.9 hours, covering more than a full rotation of the asteroid. It flew within 2.1 miles’ (3.5 kilometers) distance to the surface of Bennu – the closest it’s been since the TAG sample collection event.

Image above: NASA invites the public to watch OSIRIS-REx depart from Bennu on NASA.gov and NASA TV, May 10, 2021, at 4 p.m. EDT. Image Credit: NASA.

It will take until at least April 13 for OSIRIS-REx to downlink all of the data and new pictures of Bennu’s surface recorded during the flyby. It shares the Deep Space Network antennas with other missions like Mars Perseverance, and typically gets 4–6 hours of downlink time per day. “We collected about 4,000 megabytes of data during the flyby,” said Mike Moreau, deputy project manager of OSIRIS-REx at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Bennu is approximately 185 million miles from Earth right now, which means we can only achieve a downlink data-rate of 412 kilobits per second, so it will take several days to download all of the flyby data.”

Once the mission team receives the images and other instrument data, they will study how OSIRIS-REx jumbled up Bennu’s surface. During touchdown, the spacecraft’s sampling head sunk 1.6 feet (48.8 centimeters) into the asteroid’s surface and simultaneously fired a pressurized charge of nitrogen gas. The spacecraft’s thrusters kicked up a large amount of surface material during the back-away burn – launching rocks and dust in the process.

Image above: KinetX Flight Navigator Leilah McCarthy processes navigation images to help target NASA’s OSIRIS-REx final flyby of near-Earth asteroid Bennu. Image Credits: KinetX Inc./Coralie Adam.

OSIRIS-REx, with its pristine and precious asteroid cargo, will remain in the vicinity of Bennu until May 10 when it will fire its thrusters and begin its two-year cruise home. The mission will deliver the asteroid sample to Earth Sept. 24, 2023.

OSIRIS-REx at Bennu. Animation Credits: NASA/JPL

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, provides overall mission management, systems engineering, and the safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx (Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security - Regolith Explorer). Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson, is the principal investigator, and the University of Arizona also leads the science team and the mission’s science observation planning and data processing. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the spacecraft and provides flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace are responsible for navigating the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about this story and OSIRIS-REx visit: https://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex

Images (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Rob Garner/GSFC/By Rani Gran.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

20 years since the first launch of the Proton-M launch vehicle

 

ROSCOSMOS logo.

April 6, 2021

Preparations for the first launch of the Proton-M launch vehicle, 2001

20 years ago, on April 7, 2001, the first launch of the Proton-M launch vehicle was carried out from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Today it is designed to launch unmanned spacecraft into low-earth orbit and then into outer space. The launch vehicle was developed by the State Space Research and Production Center named after M.V. Khrunichev (part of the Roscosmos State Corporation) and is used to launch Russian federal and foreign commercial spacecraft.

Preparations for the first launch of the Proton-M launch vehicle, 2001

Over the past 20 years of operation, the upgraded Proton-M rocket has confirmed its high reliability along with high performance characteristics. Many systems on Proton-M have been upgraded. For example, the outdated control system, both morally and in terms of element base, was replaced by a more modern one, with a digital on-board computer.

Preparations for the first launch of the Proton-M launch vehicle, 2001

This made it possible for the rocket to maneuver in space during the active phase of the flight, which significantly expands the range of choice of inclination of the reference orbits when delivering satellites to the geostationary orbit. Specialists paid special attention to improving the environmental performance of the carrier.

First launch of the Proton-M launch vehicle, 2001

One of the most important stages of the Proton modernization was the creation of the Briz-M upper stage. The prelaunch preparation of the Briz is autonomous, and in flight it also functions autonomously. "Breeze-M" with a starting weight of 23 tons has its own control system, a propulsion engine capable of starting ten times in zero gravity and its own fuel supply. The first launch of Proton-K with the Briz-M upper stage took place on June 5, 1999, but an accident occurred at the second stage of the carrier. Exactly one year later, the Proton-K launch vehicle with the Briz-M upper stage was launched, and the Horizon-45 satellite was launched into a given orbit.

First launch of the Proton-M launch vehicle, 2001

Lighter and more voluminous nose fairings have been developed for the Proton-M launch vehicle. This makes it possible to significantly increase the volume to accommodate the payload, as well as to carry out group launches of various types of satellites. In addition, the Proton-M has solved the problem of a sharp reduction in the size of the fields allocated for the fall of the spent first stages of the carrier. The reduction in the size of the fields of incidence is carried out by means of a controlled descent of the first stage accelerator onto a platform of limited dimensions. Reducing the size of the drop fields, in turn, makes it easier to find and dispose of the remains of the first stage. It also falls to the ground almost "clean" - the cyclogram of the operation of the first stage engines ensures the complete depletion of components from its tanks. Thus, the environmental performance of the new Russian carrier is significantly improved.

First launch of the Proton-M launch vehicle, 2001

After commissioning in 2001, the rocket went through several stages of modernization. The first stage was implemented in 2004 and ended with the launch of the Intelsat-10 spacecraft weighing 5.6 tons into a geo-transfer orbit. The second stage was completed in 2007 with the launch of the DirectTV-10 satellite weighing 6 tons, the third stage ended in 2008. The fourth stage of modernization is currently being implemented. The first stage of the launch vehicle uses six RD-276 liquid-propellant rocket engines. At the second stage, three RD-0210 and one RD-0211 are installed, on the third - the RD-0212 engine block (consists of the RD-0213 main engine and the RD-0214 steering engine).

First launch of the Proton-M launch vehicle, 2001

The maximum carrying capacity of the Proton-M is 22.4 tons (into a low reference orbit). In combination with the Breeze-M upper stage, the rocket can launch a payload weighing more than 6 tons into a geostationary transfer orbit and up to 3.7 tons into a geostationary orbit.

ROSCOSMOS Press Release: https://www.roscosmos.ru/30620/

Images, Text, Credits: ROSCOSMOS/Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Soyuz Crew Ship Ready for Launch; Space Science in Full Swing

 

ISS - Expedition 64 Mission patch.

Apr 6, 2021

Image above: Northrop Grumman's Cygnus resupply ship, with its prominent cymbal-shaped UltraFlex solar arrays is pictured attached to the space station. Image Credit: NASA.

The first of two crews launching to the International Space Station in April will blast off from Kazakhstan on Friday. The Soyuz MS-18 rocket rolled out to its launch pad this morning as three new Expedition 65 crew members get ready for their long-term space research mission.

NASA Flight Engineer Mark Vande Hei and Roscosmos Flight Engineer Pyotr Dubrov will flank Soyuz Commander Oleg Novitskiy inside the new Soyuz crew ship. They will lift off Friday at 3:42 a.m. EDT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome and take a near three-and-a-half hour ride to the station, orbiting Earth twice.

Image above: The Soyuz MS-18 rocket, that will launch the Expedition 65 crew to the space station on April 9, is rolled out to the launch pad in Kazakhstan. Image Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls.

After the new crew docks to the Rassvet module and opens the hatches, there will be 10 people occupying the orbiting lab until the crew they are replacing, the Expedition 64 trio, returns to Earth a week later. NASA astronaut Kate Rubins will complete her mission on April 16 with Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Ryzhikov. They will undock from the station’s Poisk module inside the Soyuz MS-17 crew ship completing a 185-day mission and parachute to a landing in Kazakhstan.

Onboard the station, the current seven-member crew is busy conducting advanced space science benefitting humans on and off the Earth. The orbital septet is also gearing up to accommodate the two April crew swaps when there will be as many as eleven people occupying the space station.

Image above: The Soyuz rocket is rolled out by train to the launch pad at Site 31, Tuesday, April 6, 2021, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Expedition 65 NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Oleg Novitskiy are scheduled to launch aboard their Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft on April 9. Image Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls.

NASA Flight Engineers Michael Hopkins and Victor Glover were back inside Europe’s Columbus laboratory module exploring how microgravity affects the human nervous system. Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi worked on biology hardware servicing components inside the Cell Biology Experiment Facility and the Confocal Space Microscope.

Soyuz-2.1a ready to launch Soyuz MS-18 “Y. A. Gagarin”

Noguchi also joined Rubins during the afternoon and set up extra sleep accommodations inside the Columbus lab. NASA Flight Engineer Shannon Walker routed cables that charge U.S. spacesuit batteries inside the Quest airlock.

Related links:

Expedition 64: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition64/index.html

Expedition 65: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition65/index.html

Rassvet module: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/rassvet

Poisk module: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/poisk-mini-research-module-2

Advanced space science: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html

Columbus laboratory module: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/europe-columbus-laboratory

Cell Biology Experiment Facility: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Facility.html?#id=333

Confocal Space Microscope: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Facility.html?#id=7428

Quest airlock: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/joint-quest-airlock

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

Images (mentioned), Video, Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia/Yvette Smith/ROSCOSMOS/SciNews.

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RS-25 Rocket Engines Return to Launch NASA’s Artemis Moon Missions

 

NASA - Exploration Mission-1 patch.

Apr 6, 2021

The rocket engine with one of the most storied histories in spaceflight, the RS-25, is returning to space for a second act – this time to send humans on the Artemis missions to explore the Moon.

As the space shuttle main engine, the RS-25 has a proven record of launching 135 missions spanning over three decades. At the end of the shuttle program in 2011, 16 RS-25 engines that helped build NASA’s International Space Station and deploy the Hubble Space Telescope, among other achievements, were stored away.

When NASA began scouting engines to power America’s next super heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), the RS-25 offered an opportunity to forgo costs of developing a new engine, and the ability to leverage the assets, capabilities, and experience of the Space Shuttle Program.

Image above: Nozzle N6007, seen here at Aerojet Rocketdyne’s Strategic Fabrication Center in Los Angeles, California, is the fifth nozzle from the new production line that uses advanced manufacturing methods. The nozzle just completed hat band welding and will undergo heat treatment in a large furnace (shown in the background). Heat treatments like this strengthen the nozzle and enable it to withstand the extreme environments of SLS flight. Nozzle N6007 is one of four scheduled to fly on Artemis VI. During launch over 700,000 gallons of liquid propellant will exit the nozzle at temperatures in excess of 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The newly designed RS-25 nozzle jacket, the outermost part of the engine that holds the cooling tubes, is welded together using four large cones. The original design required the welding of 37 separate pieces of sheet metal. Aerojet Rocketdyne has upgraded 16 RS-25 engines, that previously flew shuttle missions, with new control systems and has tested them at higher power levels needed for the first four Artemis missions. As with nozzle N6007, the company has begun manufacturing an improved, lower cost version of the RS-25 for future flights. Image Credit: Aerojet Rocketdyne.

“It is one of the most reliable, efficient, high-performance engines ever built and was way ahead of its time when considering design, engineering and performance,” said Johnny Heflin, manager of the SLS Liquid Engines Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “The fact that this engine has the versatility to launch the SLS is a testament to the professionals who first built it back in the 70s, as well as the incredible people that have continually improved it along its 30-plus year history.”

However, getting the engine to fly the new mega rocket was not a matter of “plug and play.” Engineers made several design improvements to ready the RS-25 for flight in the more demanding SLS environment.

Engineers Adapt the RS-25 for the SLS Rocket

In 2015, when NASA and Aerojet Rocketdyne began adapting the heritage engines, one of the first parts they redesigned was the obsolete flight controllers. Often referred to as the brain of the engine, because of its role to actively control engine operation and manage command and data protocols between the engine and spacecraft, the RS-25 needed a supercomputer capable of handling the modern SLS algorithms.

Just changing the engine’s control systems wasn’t enough to prepare this engine to operate the most powerful rocket ever built. The SLS architecture was different from that of its shuttle predecessor, and engineers adapted the RS-25 engine for its new role.

Image above: Seen here from the upper level of the RS-25 assembly deck at Aerojet Rocketdyne’s facility, located at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, are main engines 2054 and 2057. These engines are part of the third of four heritage flight sets for Artemis missions. Artemis III will take astronauts to orbit the Moon. Image Credit: Aerojet Rocketdyne.

The space shuttle afforded three RS-25s the comfort of riding farther away from the main solid rocket booster during flight, which created less extreme thermal conditions.  With the SLS design, four engines sit at the base of the rocket’s core stage, directly next to the two solid rocket boosters. In this scenario, the RS-25 engine nozzles take on extreme base heating, especially during the first two minutes of flight when the booster fuel is burned.

“Those engine nozzles are getting blasted by the extreme heat exiting the two solid rocket boosters,” said Philip Benefield, team lead for engines systems and requirements. “It’s as if the engines are flying next to two giant heat lamps during its ascent.”   

The engine nozzles absorb additional heat during booster separation because of the thrusters firing upon it to detach the booster from the SLS core stage. This was addressed by adding insulation to the engine nozzle, which Benefield described as one of the key improvements.

Image above: Seen here in the RS-25 assembly deck at Aerojet Rocketdyne’s facility, located at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, are main engines 2057 and 2054, which will fly on the Artemis III crewed lunar mission. These engines, equipped with new flight controllers, are undergoing final inspections for flight readiness. All four RS-25 engines for Artemis III will be delivered to NASA later this year. Artemis II engines have been delivered and are being prepared for integration with the second core stage. On Mar. 18, during a final green run test at Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, all four RS-25 engines of the Artemis I core stage completed a historic full-duration hot fire. The engines fired successfully for more than 8 minutes and produced 1.6 million pounds of thrust, as they will during launch of Artemis I: the rocket’s first flight to the Moon. Image Credit: Aerojet Rocketdyne.

Another difference is a result of where the liquid oxygen tank sits in relation to the four RS-25 engines at the base of the rocket’s core stage. As the upper-most tank of the 212-foot-core stage, this tall column of dense liquid oxygen propellant results in high pressure at the RS-25 inlets.  

“These inlets experience double the pressure of that of the shuttle configuration,” noted Benefield. “We had to assess whether or not these parts could handle that kind of load, then certify them to operational safety standards. With minimal upgrades, the engine met certification requirements. It truly demonstrates the engine’s advanced design and reliability.”

As of April 2019, acceptance testing of all 16 former space shuttle main engines was complete. With enough engines to cover the first four Artemis missions, the newly revived RS-25 can operate at 109% of its operational thrust level, a 5% gain from the end of the shuttle program.

The RS-25 Sees a Bright Future

By the end of the Space Shuttle Program, Aerojet Rocketdyne was no longer producing engines.

In 2015, NASA funded Aerojet Rocketdyne to restart the production of six new engines and then modified the agreement by adding 18 additional engines to the order. The newer RS-25s produce 111% operational thrust levels and incorporate advanced manufacturing methods, such as 3-D Printing, hot isostatic pressure bonding, five-axis milling machines and digital X-rays, reducing the cost to build the new engines by 30% from the original shuttle engines.

“It wasn’t just a matter of making the RS-25 more powerful, we weren’t trying to take something amazing and make it more amazing. We wanted to attain the same remarkable aspects while making it significantly less costly to build,” commented Heflin.

Adding to manufacturing improvements, Aerojet Rocketdyne recently redesigned the engine nozzle jacket that will be assembled from four large metal cones, as opposed to the previous design that came in 37 separate pieces.  

“That single manufacturing change reduces nozzle cost by over 20%. So, we are laying the foundation for the future by reducing manufacturing costs and building the same high-performance engine in less time,” Heflin concluded.

SLS RS-25 Engine Test, 6 April 2021

During a recent Green Run test at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, all four RS-25 engines of the Artemis I core stage completed a full-duration 8 minute hot fire and produced 1.6 million pounds of thrust, as they will to launch the Artemis I mission. The next time the four engines fire will be during the rocket’s debut flight to the Moon.

The Artemis program is the next step in human space exploration and the major component of NASA’s broader Moon to Mars exploration approach, which will establish sustainable exploration of the Moon and prepare for humanity’s next giant leap: sending astronauts to Mars.

For more on NASA’s SLS, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/sls

Images (mentioned), Video, Text, Credits: NASA/Jennifer Harbaugh/Marshall Space Flight Center/Ray Osorio/NASA TV/SciNews.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch