New Shepard Mission NS-21

 

Blue Origin logo.

May 9, 2022

New Shepard Mission NS-21 to Fly Six Customer space tourists, Including First Mexican-Born Woman to Visit Space

Blue Origin today announced the crew flying on its NS-21 mission will include: investor and NS-19 space tourists Evan Dick; electrical engineer and former NASA test lead Katya Echazarreta; business jet pilot and Action Aviation Chairman Hamish Harding; civil production engineer Victor Correa Hespanha; adventurer and Dream Variation Ventures co-founder Jaison Robinson; and explorer and co-founder of private equity firm Insight Equity Victor Vescovo, Commander, USN (Ret.). Katya will become the first Mexican-born woman and youngest American woman to fly to space, and she will be flying as part of Space for Humanity’s sponsored Citizen "Astronaut"* Program. Victor Correa Hespanha will be the second Brazilian to fly to space.

The crew of NS-21

Each space tourist on board NS-21 will carry a postcard to space on behalf of Blue Origin’s foundation, Club for the Future, whose Postcards to Space program gives students access to space on Blue Origin’s rockets. The Club’s mission is to inspire future generations to pursue careers in STEM for the benefit of Earth.  

This mission will be the fifth human flight for the New Shepard program and the 21st in its history. The flight date will be announced soon.

Meet the crew:

Evan Dick
Evan is an engineer, investor, and Managing Member of Dick Holdings, LLC., and flew onboard NS-19 on December 11, 2021. Evan formerly served as Senior Vice President for D.E. Shaw and Managing Director of Highbridge Capital Management, and he is a charitable supporter of the Darwin Foundation and Population Relief International Corp. Evan is an ATP-rated pilot and volunteer for Starfighters Aerospace, as well as an avid sailor and motorcyclist.  

Katya Echazarreta
Katya was born in Guadalajara, Mexico. Her mission is to provide representation for women and minorities interested in STEM fields. She is the co-host of the YouTube series "Netflix IRL" and "Electric Kat" on the CBS show "Mission Unstoppable.” Katya is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in electrical and computer engineering at Johns Hopkins University and earned her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from UCLA in 2019. Following graduation, she spent nearly four years at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory working on five NASA missions, including the Perseverance Rover and Europa Clipper.    

Katya’s seat is sponsored by Space for Humanity, a nonprofit whose mission is to expand access to space for all of humanity.

Hamish Harding
Hamish is Chairman of Action Aviation, a business jet brokerage company he founded in 2004, and also a business jet pilot. In 2019, he and former International Space Station Commander Col. Terry Virts broke the Round-the-World record in a Gulfstream G650ER for any aircraft flying over the North and South poles. In addition to holding several aviation world records, Hamish has travelled to the South Pole twice, and in 2021 dived the Challenger Deep with Victor Vescovo to a depth of 36,000 ft in a two-person sub. Hamish lives in the United Arab Emirates with his wife, two teenage sons, and two golden retrievers.

Victor Correa Hespanha
Victor is a 28-year-old civil production engineer from Minas Gerais (Brazil). As a child he dreamed of becoming an astronaut and now, after buying his first NFT, he's honored to be the second Brazilian to fly to space and the world’s first cryptonaut.

Victor’s seat is sponsored by the Crypto Space Agency, whose mission is to combine the space industry's technology with the innovation and financial power of the crypto markets to accelerate humankind’s off-world future.

Jaison Robinson
Jaison founded JJM Investments, a commercial real estate company, and co-founded Dream Variations Ventures (DVV) with his wife, Jamie. DVV invests in technology and sports start-ups. He’s an avid scuba diver and skydiver, has broken the sound barrier in a Mig-29 fighter jet, spent a week hiking in Antarctica, and climbed to the tallest waterfall in the world in Venezuela. He was a finalist on Survivor: Samoa in 2009. Jaison earned a bachelor’s degree from Stanford, with study at Oxford, and a JD from the University of Chicago. He is also an Eagle Scout and played water polo at Stanford and on the United States National Team.

Victor Vescovo
Victor is a co-founder of private equity investment firm Insight Equity. He has completed the “Explorer’s Grand Slam,” which includes summiting the world’s seven summits and skiing to the North and South Poles. In 2020, he became the first person to repeatedly dive to the deepest point in the ocean, Challenger Deep (now twelve times). He is the first person to visit the deepest point in the world’s five oceans and executed the deepest wreck dive in history. Victor is a commercially-rated multi-engine jet and helicopter pilot, as well as a certified submersible test pilot. He holds degrees from Stanford, MIT, and Harvard Business School, and served 20 years in the U.S. Navy Reserve as an intelligence officer, retiring as a Commander (O-5). 

*Editor's note:

I have voluntarily changed the name astronauts to space tourists, because these people in this type of ballistic flight do not perform space flight with an orbit around the earth, and moreover do not have the formation of a astronaut or training.

More information and live steaming on Blue Origin website: https://www.blueorigin.com/

Related links:

Space for Humanity: https://spaceforhumanity.org/

Club for the Future: https://www.clubforfuture.org/

Postcards to Space: https://clubforfuture.org/missions/

Image, Text, Credit: Blue Origin.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

A start-up plans to open a luxury hotel in space in 2025

 

Orbital Assembly Corporation logo.

May 8, 2022

A space hotel should open for anyone who wants to sleep in Earth orbit. The company wants to make the space accessible to everyone.

Image above: The Californian company Orbital Assembly Corporation plans to open a first hotel in space in 2025, then a second in 2027, illustration: Voyager space station. Image Credit: Orbital Assembly Corporation.

It sounds like a science fiction scenario, but it isn't. The Orbital Assembly Corporation is planning to open a hotel in space in 2025. These are two space stations, Pioneer and Voyager, which will welcome tourists.

Pioneer. Image Credit: Orbital Assembly Corporation

The first construction, Pioneer, will be a small structure of five modules, with a total capacity of 28 people, and should see its first customers arrive in five years. The second, Voyager, will be much larger: 400 people can be accommodated in a circular platform almost 500 meters in diameter and it should open in 2027. Both establishments will offer the same comfort as terrestrial hotels.

Image above: The two hotels are expected to accommodate 28 and 400 people respectively. Image Credit: Orbital Assembly Corporation.

Affordable rates?

The price of the rooms is not yet known, nor that of the transport to get there. Timothy Alatorre, who works on the US start-up project, told CNN Travel that the goal is to provide affordable fares, "to enable a large number of people to live, work and flourish in space. 

A room in Voyager. Image Credit: Orbital Assembly Corporation

We're doing everything we can to make the space accessible to everyone, not just the wealthy." The Californian company has already raised $1 million in a first round of funding this year. Despite doubts from space industry experts, the project could be helped by NASA, which wants to promote private space infrastructure.

Editor's note:

The same project as Gateway Foundation with Orbital Assembly Corporation (OAC) in 2021 (see related article) so we take the same ones and start over. Moreover with a million $ they will not go far. In short, this kind of project has existed for more than ten years and none has succeeded (in terms of space tourism), and talking about affordable prices with the name "luxury hotel" does not fit. "Affordable rates" at $250,000 or more, we really don't live in the same world...

Related articles:

Voyager Station: The first space hotel (could never) see the light of day in 2027?
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/03/voyager-station-first-space-hotel-could.html

NASA Selects Companies to Develop Commercial Destinations in Space
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/12/nasa-selects-companies-to-develop.html

NASA Selects Orbital Reef to Develop Space Station Replacement
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/12/nasa-selects-orbital-reef-to-develop.html

Related link:

Orbital Assembly Corporation: https://orbitalassembly.com/

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: AFP/Orbital Assembly Corporation/Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Space Station Science Highlights: Week of May 2, 2022

 

ISS - Expedition 67 Mission patch.

May 6, 2022

Image above: NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins floats in the space station’s cupola, a direct nadir viewing window from which Earth and celestial objects are visible. Crew members often spend free time here taking in the spectacular views. Image Credit: NASA.

Crew members aboard the International Space Station conducted scientific investigations during the week of May 2 that included demonstrating autonomous robotic technology, testing liquid- and air-based systems for growing plants, and examining the effects of microgravity on grip strength and upper limb movement. The SpaceX Crew-3 mission, NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, and Kayla Barron and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Matthias Maurer, splashed down on Friday, ending their nearly six-month mission.

Here are details on some of these investigations aboard the microgravity lab:

Robotic caretakers

Image above: NASA astronauts Kayla Barron (left) and Jessica Watkins (right) and ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti (top) work checking out systems inside the International Space Station's Kibo laboratory module. Image Credit: NASA.

During human exploration in deep space, infrastructure such as Gateway may be without crew for extended periods. ISAAC demonstrates technology for using autonomous robots to track the health of this infrastructure, provide maintenance, and respond to critical faults such as leaks and fires when crew members are away. The technology also could enable robotic transfer and unpacking of cargo in preparation of the arrival of crew members. The investigation uses the Astrobee robots already aboard the space station. This technology also could provide autonomous caretaking of industrial or research facilities on Earth where continuous human presence is costly or dangerous, such as polar bases and oceanic research vessels. ISAAC is led by the NASA Ames Research Center Intelligent Robotics Group in collaboration with the Johnson Space Center Robotic Systems Technology Branch. During the week, crew members activated Astrobee robots for the demonstration.

New ways to grow

Image above: NASA astronaut Raja Chari works on the XROOTS investigation, which tests techniques to grow plants without soil or other traditional growth media. Image Credit: NASA.

XROOTS uses hydroponic (liquid-based) and aeroponic (air-based) techniques to grow plants without soil or other traditional growth media. Current space-based plant systems are small, and their water and nutrient delivery systems do not scale well for longer spaceflight due to issues such as mass, containment, maintenance, and sanitation. Hydroponic and aeroponic techniques could enable production of crops on a larger scale for future space exploration. Growth system components developed for this investigation also could enhance cultivation of plants in terrestrial settings such as greenhouses, contributing to better food security for people on Earth. Crew members conducted checks of the investigation facility and installed plants during the week.

Manipulation in microgravity

Animation above: NASA astronaut Robert Hines conducts a seated session for the ESA GRIP investigation, which studies how long-duration spaceflight affects grip force and arm movements when a person manipulates objects. Animation Credit: NASA.

GRIP, an investigation from ESA, studies the effects of long-duration spaceflight on a person’s ability to regulate the force of their grip and trajectories of upper limbs while manipulating objects. Changes in these functions, which developed in Earth’s gravity, have been observed during short-term exposure to microgravity. Results of this investigation could identify potential hazards for astronauts as they move between gravitational environments and contribute to the design and control of equipment and systems used on future exploration missions. This experiment also could contribute to a better understanding of how the human nervous system controls movement on the ground. During the week, crew members performed seated and supine sessions for the investigation.

Other investigations involving the crew:

- Phospho-aging, an investigation from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), examines the molecular mechanism behind aging-like symptoms, such as bone and muscle loss, that can occur more rapidly in microgravity. Results could provide evidence that bone loss experienced on Earth actually is a cause and not only a symptom of aging and preventing such loss could be a practical anti-aging therapy contributing to longer healthy life spans in humans.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=8278

- DOSIS-3D, an investigation from ESA, measures the radiation doses at specific locations inside the space station to create a three-dimensional map of the levels and distribution of radiation throughout the orbiting lab. Results could help scientists make recommendations for how to protect crews on future missions.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=177

- The ESA NutrISS investigation assesses changes in an individual’s body composition and energy balance throughout spaceflight. Results could provide insight into what causes these changes and lead to ways to improve physical health and quality of life for astronauts during and after their flight.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7875
 
- Transparent Alloys - METCOMP, an investigation from ESA, studies the formation of layered structures during solidification of an alloy (a mixture of different metals) using specific organic materials that solidify like a metal yet remain transparent. Alloys are used in a wide variety of applications from smartphones to aircraft, and lighter, stronger versions could benefit consumers and industry.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=8504

- Wireless Compose-2, an investigation from ESA, demonstrates a wireless network infrastructure for sensor monitoring and data transmission to support scientific experiments in microgravity. Results could contribute to development of new technologies for monitoring the health of astronauts and people on the ground and hardware that provides more precise control of free-flying robots.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=8563

- Rhodium Crystal Preservation studies the use of crystal formation to preserve biological material for research. These crystal matrices do not require special conditions and could provide a way to maintain biological materials for research on future space missions.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=8712

- Actiwatch is a wearable monitor that continuously collects data on a crew member’s circadian rhythms, sleep-wake patterns, and activity during flight.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Facility.html?#id=838

Space to Ground: Place of No Return: 05/06/2022

Related links:

Expedition 67: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition67/index.html

Gateway: https://www.nasa.gov/gateway

ISAAC: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=8427

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

XROOTS: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=8088

GRIP: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=1188

ISS National Lab: https://www.issnationallab.org/

Spot the Station: https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/

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), Animation (mentioned), Video (NASA), Text, Credits: NASA/Ana Guzman/John Love, ISS Research Planning Integration Scientist Expedition 67.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Global Citizen Science Project Finds Over 1700 Asteroid Trails in Hubble Images

 

NASA / ESA - Hubble Space Telescope (HST) patch.

May 6, 2022

Asteroid Trails Mosaic

Combining artificial intelligence with many keen human eyes, astronomers have found 1701 new asteroid trails in archival data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, consisting of more than 37 000 images that span two decades. The project reflects both Hubble’s value to scientists as an asteroid hunter and how the public can effectively contribute to citizen science initiatives.

On International Asteroid Day in June 2019 an international group of astronomers launched the Hubble Asteroid Hunter, a citizen science project to identify asteroids in archival Hubble data. The initiative was developed by researchers and engineers at the European Science and Technology Centre (ESTEC) and the European Space Astronomy Centre’s Science Data Centre (ESDC), in collaboration with the Zooniverse platform, the world’s largest and most popular citizen science platform, and Google.

Abell 370 Parallel Field with Asteroids

The astronomers collectively identified more than 37 000 composite images taken between April 2002 and March 2021 with Hubble’s ACS and WFC3 instruments. With a typical observation time of 30 minutes, asteroid trails appear as curved lines or streaks in these images. Over 11 400 members of the public classified and analysed these images. More than 1000 trails were identified, providing a training set for an automated algorithm based on artificial intelligence. The combination of citizen science and AI resulted in a final dataset containing 1701 trails in 1316 Hubble images. Project participants also tagged various other astronomical objects, such as gravitational lenses, galaxies and nebulae. Volunteers discussed their findings and sought assistance from scientists and other participants via the project’s forum.

Roughly one third of the asteroid trails seen could be identified and attributed to known asteroids in the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Centre, the largest database of Solar System objects. This left 1031 unidentified trails that are faint and likely to be smaller asteroids than those detected in ground-based surveys. The vast majority of these asteroids are expected to be located in the Main Belt between Mars and Jupiter, where asteroids of such small size are as yet poorly studied. These trails could give the astronomers insightful clues about the conditions in the early Solar System when the planets were forming.

Broken Asteroid Trail in NGC 4548

The project highlights Hubble’s potential to image faint, previously unknown asteroids and represents a new approach to finding asteroids in astronomical archives spanning decades, which may be effectively applied to other datasets. In addition to illustrating Hubble’s value as an asteroid hunter, it also reinforced the public’s interest in contributing towards scientific endeavours and the value of citizen science efforts.

Next, the project will explore the 1031 streaks of previously unknown asteroids to characterise their orbits and study their properties, such as their sizes and rotation periods. As most of these asteroid streaks were captured by Hubble many years ago, it is not possible to follow them up now to determine their orbits [1]. However, using Hubble, astronomers can use the parallax effect to determine the distance to the unknown asteroids and put constraints on their orbits. As Hubble moves around the Earth, it changes its point of view while observing the asteroid which also moves on its own orbit. By knowing the position of Hubble during the observation and measuring the curvature of the streaks, scientists can determine the distances to the asteroids and estimate the shapes of their orbits. Some of the longer Hubble observations facilitate the measurement of a light curve [2] for the asteroids, from which the team can measure their rotation periods and infer their shapes.

Asteroid in the Crab Nebula (M1)

Notes:

[1] Compared to the bright stars and Solar System planets which Hubble regularly tracks, most of the asteroids are very faint and move very quickly, making them difficult to spot. As they will have drifted a very long way since first being seen, the likelihood that predictions of their orbits will be exact enough to capture the object in Hubble’s precise field of view is too slim.

[2] A light curve is a plot of the amount of light seen from an object over a period of time. As the amount of light rises and falls, it traces out a curve, which tells astronomers when and by how much the object’s brightness changes. This can tell them about some of the object’s properties. In this case, as the small, irregularly-shaped asteroids rotate and tumble in space, they expose larger or smaller surfaces to the Sun, and the amount of light reflected towards us changes.

More information:

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.

Hubble Space Telescope (HST)

The international team of astronomers in this study consists of S. Kruk (European Space Agency and ​​Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik), P. G. Martín (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid), M. Popescu ( Astronomical Institute of the Romanian Academy), B. Merín (European Space Agency), M. Mahlke (Université Côte d’Azur, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur), B. Carry (Université Côte d’Azur, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur), R. Thomson (Google Cloud), S. Karadağ (Google), J. Durán (RHEA for European Space Agency), E. Racero (SERCO for European Space Agency), F. Giordano (SERCO for European Space Agency), D. Baines (Quasar Science Resources for European Space Agency), G. de Marchi (European Space Agency), and R. Laureijs (European Space Agency).

Links

Images of Hubble: https://esahubble.org/images/archive/category/spacecraft/

Science paper: https://www.aanda.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202142998

ESA Hubblesite: https://esahubble.org/

Related links:

Minor Planet Centre: https://minorplanetcenter.net/

European Science and Technology Centre (ESTEC): https://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESTEC

European Space Astronomy Centre’s Science Data Centre (ESDC): https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/esdc/home

Zooniverse platform: http://www.zooniverse.org/

Hubble Asteroid Hunter: http://www.asteroidhunter.org/

Images, Animation Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, S. Kruk (ESA/ESTEC), Hubble Asteroid Hunter citizen science team, M. Zamani (ESA/Hubble)/NASA, ESA, and B. Sunnquist and J. Mack (STScI)/Acknowledgment: NASA, ESA, and J. Lotz (STScI) and the HFF Team/R. Evans and K. Stapelfeldt (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and NASA/ESA/ESA/Hubble, M. Thévenot (@AstroMelina)/Text Credits: ESA/Hubble/Bethany Downer.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

SpaceX Starlink 44 launch

 

SpaceX - Falcon 9 / Starlink Mission patch.

May 6, 2022

SpaceX Starlink 44 liftoff

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched 53 Starlink satellites (Starlink-44) from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on 6 May 2022, at 09:42 UTC (05:42 EDT).

SpaceX Starlink 44 launch & Falcon 9 first stage landing, 6 May 2022

Following stage separation, Falcon 9’s first stage landed on the “A Shortfall of Gravitas” droneship, stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. Falcon 9’s first stage (B1058) previously supported eleven missions: Crew Demo-2, ANASIS-II, CRS-21, Transporter-1, Transporter-3 and six Starlink missions.

Related links:

SpaceX: https://www.spacex.com/

Starlink: https://www.starlink.com/

Image, Video, Text, Credits: SpaceX/SciNews/Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Science at Sunrise: Solving the Mystery of Frost Hiding on Mars

 

NASA - 2001 Mars Odyssey Mission patch.

May 6, 2022

A new study using data from NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter may explain why Martian frost can be invisible to the naked eye and why dust avalanches appear on some slopes.

Image above: Martian surface frost, made up largely of carbon dioxide, appears blueish-white in these images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) camera aboard NASA’s 2001 Odyssey orbiter. THEMIS takes images in both visible light perceptible to the human eye and heat-sensitive infrared. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU.

Scientists were baffled last year when studying images of the Martian surface taken at dawn by NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter. When they looked at the surface using visible light – the kind that the human eye perceives – they could see ghostly, blue-white morning frost illuminated by the rising Sun. But using the orbiter’s heat-sensitive camera, the frost appeared more widely, including in areas where none was visible.

The scientists knew they were looking at frost that forms overnight and is made mostly of carbon dioxide – essentially, dry ice, which often appears as frost on the Red Planet rather than as water ice. But why was this dry ice frost visible in some places and not others?

In a paper published last month in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, these scientists proposed a surprising answer that may also explain how dust avalanches, which are reshaping the planet, are triggered after sunrise.

Image above: These dark streaks, also known as “slope streaks,” resulted from dust avalanches on Mars. The HiRISE camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured them on Dec. 26, 2017. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona.

From Frost to Vapor

Launched in 2001, Odyssey is NASA’s longest-lived Mars mission and carries the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS), an infrared, or temperature-sensitive, camera that provides a one-of-a-kind view of the Martian surface. Odyssey’s current orbit provides a unique look at the planet at 7 a.m. local Mars time.

“Odyssey’s morning orbit produces spectacular pictures,” said Sylvain Piqueux of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, who led the paper. “We can see the long shadows of sunrise as they stretch across the surface.”

Because Mars has so little atmosphere (just 1% the density of Earth’s), the Sun quickly warms frost that builds up overnight. Instead of melting, dry ice vaporizes into the atmosphere within minutes.

Lucas Lange, a JPL intern working with Piqueux, first noticed the cold-temperature signature of frost in many places where it couldn’t be seen on the surface. These temperatures were appearing just tens of microns underground – less than the width of a human hair “below” the surface.

“Our first thought was ice could be buried there,” Lange said. “Dry ice is plentiful near Mars’ poles, but we were looking closer to the equator of the planet, where it’s generally too warm for dry ice frost to form.”

In their paper, the authors propose they were seeing “dirty frost” – dry ice frost mixed with fine grains of dust that obscured it in visible light but not in infrared images.

Thawing Frost and Avalanches

The phenomenon led the scientists to suspect dirty frost might also explain some of the dark streaks that can stretch 3,300 feet (1,000 meters) or more down Martian slopes. They knew the streaks resulted from, essentially, dust avalanches that slowly reshape mountainsides across the planet. Scientists think these dust avalanches probably look something like a ground-hugging river of dust releasing a trail of fluffy material behind. As the dust travels downhill over several hours, it exposes streaks of darker material underneath.

Image above: These dark streaks, also known as “slope streaks,” resulted from dust avalanches in an area of Mars called Acheron Fossae. The HiRISE camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured them on Dec. 3, 2006. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona.

These dark streaks are not the same as a better-documented variety called recurring slope lineae, which recur in the same places, season after season, for weeks (instead of hours) at a time. Once thought to result from briny water slowly seeping from mountainsides, recurring slope lineae are now generally believed to result from flows of dry sand or dust.

Mapping the slopes streaks for their recent study, the authors found they tend to appear in places with morning frost. The researchers propose the streaks resulted from the vaporizing frost creating just enough pressure to loosen the dust grains, causing an avalanche.

The hypotheses are further evidence of just how surprising the Red Planet can be.

“Every time we send a mission to Mars, we discover exotic new processes,” said Chris Edwards, a paper co-author at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. “We don’t have anything exactly like a slope streak on Earth. You have to think beyond your experiences on Earth to understand Mars.”

More About the Mission

2001 Mars Odyssey. Animation Credit: NASA

JPL manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) was developed by Arizona State University. The THEMIS investigation is led by Dr. Philip Christensen at ASU. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver is the prime contractor for the Odyssey project and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena.

For more information: https://mars.nasa.gov/odyssey

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

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

From Weather Forecasting to Climate Change, NASA’s AIRS Builds a Legacy

 

NASA - Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) patch.

May 6, 2022

Weather Forecasting to Climate Change. Image Credits: NASA/JPL

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder helps researchers predict weather, analyze air pollution, monitor volcanoes, and track a changing climate. And there’s more.

Heat Wave Measurements

Video above: NASA’s AIRS instrument tracked a record-breaking heat wave as it intensified in the Pacific Northwest last June. AIRS remains a vital resource for weather forecasting, and 20 years after launch it has also become a resource for understanding the role of climate change in weather events like this. Video Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

On April 13, a blizzard dropped 4 feet of snow on Minot, North Dakota, as a drought-fueled wildfire burned in Ruidoso, New Mexico, and severe storms spawned eight tornadoes in Kentucky. NASA’s Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) helped weather forecasters predict these events, as it’s been doing since it was launched in 2002. But now AIRS also helps researchers calculate the role climate change plays in these extreme weather events. It has become indispensable in other ways that couldn’t be foreseen when the weather instrument launched aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite in May 2002.

“Understanding what happened in the first couple of decades of the 21st century is critical to understanding climate change, and there’s no better record than AIRS to study that,” said Joao Teixeira, AIRS science team leader at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “I see us as guardians of this precious dataset that will be our legacy for future generations.”

AIRS measures infrared – heat – radiation from the air below the satellite to create three-dimensional maps of atmospheric temperature and water vapor, the main ingredients for any kind of weather. The instrument proved to be an almost immediate success: Within three years after AIRS’ launch, assessments of forecasts made by professional meteorologists showed that incorporating AIRS data in weather forecasting models produced a significant increase in accuracy.

AIRS: NASA Advances Our Understanding of Earth’s Climate

Video above: Launched in 2002 aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite, AIRS creates 3D maps of air and surface temperature, water vapor, and cloud properties. Its data forms a “fingerprint” of the state of the atmosphere for a given time and place, contributing to climate data for future generations. Video Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Looking Beyond Weather

The AIRS instrument is a spectrometer that breaks radiation into wavelengths, just as a prism does. But where earlier spectrometers in space had 15 or 20 detectors that each observed broad bands of infrared wavelengths, AIRS has 2,378 detectors that each senses a specific wavelength, and every detector makes close to 3 million measurements a day. This enormous advance in data quality and quantity not only succeeded in improving weather forecasting, but inspired a new generation of similar spaceborne instruments from space agencies around the world.

In 2002, getting this technology ready to launch required an innovative design and skillful construction to accommodate the thousands of detectors. The instrument’s creators eventually arranged the detectors in 17 long lines, each of them two detectors wide (for redundancy in case one failed) by about 150 detectors long, and packaged them onto a single focal plane assembly. “When I first saw it, I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’” said Tom Pagano, AIRS’ project manager at JPL. “It was a major engineering achievement for the time.” Other advances, like the development of a frictionless cryocooler to cool AIRS’ detectors, led to an instrument that has lasted an extremely long time and is extraordinarily stable.

EOS Aqua satellite. Image Credit: NASA

“Due to the amazing engineering, the data we have now is almost the same quality as it was 20 years ago, when the instrument was new,” Teixeira said.

Stability is essential for scientists to pinpoint the small but persistent signals of climate change from out of the noise of year-to-year variations in weather. As the global temperature creeps upward toward 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial times, AIRS’ two decades of consistent and multifaceted measurements provide a satellite record of global warming that is second to none. There are other satellite records of individual greenhouse gases or of surface temperature, for example, but no other global data record matches the time span and wide range of wavelengths in the AIRS dataset.

Legacy Building

When AIRS launched, the mission team aspired to collect data for 15 years, said Pagano. “We put an unimaginable amount of effort into making an instrument that wouldn’t fail in orbit. It was the philosophy of how we built these instruments on the Aqua satellite.”

And as the data has kept coming, researchers have found more and more uses for it. Researchers recently used AIRS data to detect atmospheric waves from the eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano. Earlier this year, researchers also used AIRS data to quantify the link between humidity and influenza outbreaks. In addition, AIRS data is used to track clouds, carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, and other gases and pollutants whose spectral signatures fall within the range of infrared wavelengths AIRS detects.

The AIRS team and other researchers are still looking into even more applications of the dataset. “There’s more to mine from this instrument,” Pagano said. “It has such rich information content.”

Related links:

NASA’s Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS): https://airs.jpl.nasa.gov/

Climate: https://www.nasa.gov/subject/3127/climate

Earth: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/index.html

Images (mentioned), Videos (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Naomi Hartono/JPL/Jane J. Lee/Andrew Wang/Written by Carol Rasmussen.

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