Orbiter.ch Space News

mercredi 10 avril 2019

Northrop Grumman Carries Technology, Scientific Investigations on Mission to Space Station

Northrop Grumman - CRS Cygnus NG-11 patch.

April 10, 2019

A Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft scheduled to liftoff on April 17 carries supplies and scientific experiments to the International Space Station. It uses a new late load capability that allows time-sensitive experiments to be loaded just 24 hours before liftoff. Previously, all cargo had to be loaded about four days prior to launch, creating challenges for some types of experiments.

Image above: A Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo craft pictured in the grips of the Canadarm2 robotic arm as the International Space Station orbits over the Pacific Ocean. Image Credit: NASA.

The launch on the company’s Antares rocket departs from Pad-0A of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia. This Cygnus mission is the 11th and final under Northrop’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS)-1 contract with NASA; a CRS-2 contract begins with a cargo launch in the fall. Resupply missions from U.S. companies ensure NASA’s capability to deliver critical science research to the space station and significantly increase its ability to conduct new investigations in the only laboratory in space.

Here are some of the scientific investigations Cygnus delivers to the space station:

Models for growing increasingly complex materials

Advanced Colloids Experiment-Temperature-10 (ACE-T-10) investigates the growth, microscopic dynamics, and restructuring processes in ordered and disordered structures such as colloidal crystals, glasses, and gels.

Image above: European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Alexander Gerst with the Advanced Colloids Experiment hardware during a previous ACE experiment. Image Credit: NASA.

Colloids provide ideal models for researching the fundamental principles of internal organization in such structures because their particles are small enough to engage in relevant phenomena, yet large enough for detailed study. Colloidal system interactions vary precisely with temperature and undergo a variety of transitions including crystallization and glass formation. Conducting the study in microgravity removes the effects of gravitational stresses.

Better life science research in a few drops

Image above: The Bio-Analyzer, a tool the size of a videogame console, easily tests different body fluids such as blood, saliva, and urine. It helps astronauts accelerate the process of scientific data collection. Image Credit: CSA-ASC.

Bio-Analyzer, a Canadian Space Agency (CSA) instrument, enhances life sciences research capabilities on the space station. It performs on-orbit detection and quantification of cell surface molecules on a per cell basis, including blood cell counts, and assesses soluble molecule concentration in a liquid sample such as blood, saliva, or urine. Part of the Life Science Research System (LSRS), the Bio-Analyzer uses just a few drops of liquid – a finger prick versus a standard blood draw, for example – and eliminates the need for freezing and storing samples.

Analyzing aging of the arteries in astronauts

Recent research suggest links between cardiovascular health risk, carotid artery aging, bone metabolism and blood biomarkers, insulin resistance, and radiation. Data also indicate accelerated aging-like changes in many astronauts on the space station, including changes to their arteries. The Space Environment Causes Acceleration of Vascular Aging: Roles of Hypogravity, Nutrition, and Radiation (Vascular Aging) looks at these changes using artery ultrasounds, blood samples, oral glucose tolerance tests, and wearable sensors. It is one of three related Canadian experiments studying the effects of weightlessness on the blood vessels and heart.

Testing immune response in space

The U.S. National Laboratory selected 12 investigations for its Rodent Research Reference Mission-1, Applications for Spaceflight Biospecimens. Tetanus Antibody Response by B cells in Space (RR-12) examines the effects of spaceflight on the function of antibody production and immune memory. Spaceflight has a dramatic influence on human immune response, but there is little research on how that affects the body’s immune system response to an actual challenge. Using a mouse model makes it possible to examine this question since the mouse immune system closely parallels that of humans.

Big buzz for new robot

A small robot takes on big jobs aboard the space station. The free-flying Astrobee can help scientists and engineers develop and test technologies for use in microgravity, give astronauts a hand with routine chores, and provide additional eyes and ears for flight controllers in Houston.

Image above: Astrobee development engineers Vinh To and Roberto Carlino conduct acoustics testing on the Astrobee Free Flyers and Docking Station before its flight to the space station on Cygnus. Image Credit: NASA.

Building on the success of SPHERES, NASA’s first-generation free-flyer, Astrobee, operates either in fully automated mode or under remote control from the ground. It can run longer and requires no supervision from the crew, freeing up more astronaut time for research. It also opens up more opportunities to experiment and test capabilities with lower risk. Astrobee is a product of the NASA Game Changing Development Program.

Scientific Investigations Set for Space on NG-11

NASA Launches Two Rockets Studying Auroras

NASA - Wallops Flight Facility patch.

April 10, 2019

NASA successfully launched the Auroral Zone Upwelling Rocket Experiment or AZURE mission on April 5 from the Andøya Space Center in Norway.

Image above: An aurora is seen dancing across the night sky prior the launch of AZURE rockets at the Andøya Space Center in Norway. Image Credits: NASA/Lee Wingfield.

Two Black Brant XI-A sounding rockets were launched at 6:14 and 6:16 p.m. EDT on April 5 carrying scientific instruments for studying the energy exchange within an aurora.

The AZURE mission is designed to make measurements of the atmospheric density and temperature with instruments on the rockets and deploying visible gas tracers, trimethyl aluminum (TMA) and a barium/strontium mixture, which ionizes when exposed to sunlight. The vapors were released over the Norwegian Sea at 71 through 150 miles altitude.

Image above: One of two Black Brant XI rockets leaves the launch pad at the Andøya Space Center in Norway. Image Credits: NASA/Lee Wingfield.

These mixtures, using substances similar to those found in fireworks, created colorful clouds that allow researchers to track the flow of neutral and charged particles with the auroral wind. By tracking the movement of these colorful clouds via ground-based photography and triangulating their moment-by-moment position in three dimensions, AZURE will provide valuable data on the vertical and horizontal flow of particles in two key regions of the ionosphere over a range of different altitudes.

Many people believe the Earth’s atmosphere “ends” some 20-30 miles above the ground. However, the air we breathe does not abruptly end at some predefined point — instead, it gradually thins. At 150 to 200 miles above Earth, the “air” is extremely thin and these vapor clouds disperse rapidly and follow the winds which can be moving at a few hundred miles per hour.

AZURE is one of nine missions being conducted as part of the Grand Challenge Initiative (GCI) – Cusp, a series of international sounding rocket missions planned for launch in 2018 - 2020.

Image above: Colorful clouds formed by the release of vapors from the two AZURE rockets allow scientist to measure auroral winds. Image Credits: NASA/Lee Wingfield.

NASA and U.S. scientists are joining those from Norway, Japan, Canada and other countries to investigate the physics of heating and charged particle precipitation in this region called the geomagnetic cusp — one of the few places on Earth with easy access to the electrically charged solar wind that pervades the solar system.

NASA previously conducted two missions in December 2018 and two in January 2019 as part of the Initiative. The final two NASA missions — the Cusp Heating Investigation and the Cusp Region Experiment — are scheduled for November 2019.

More information on NASA’s use of vapor tracers in scientific studies is available at:

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sounding-rockets/index.html

AZURE is supported through NASA’s Sounding Rocket Program at the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. NASA’s Heliophysics Division manages the sounding rocket program.

Related links:

The AZURE mission: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/sounding-rocket-mission-will-trace-auroral-winds

Grand Challenge Initiative (GCI) – Cusp: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/science-on-the-cusp-sounding-rockets-head-north

Space Weather: https://www.nasa.gov/subject/3165/space-weather

Sounding Rockets: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sounding-rockets/index.html

Wallops Flight Facility: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/wallops/home/

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC): https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Rob Garner/Wallops Flight Facility, by Keith Koehler.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Astronomers Capture First Image of a Black Hole

ESO - European Southern Observatory logo.

10 April 2019

ESO, ALMA, and APEX contribute to paradigm-shifting observations of the gargantuan black hole at the heart of the galaxy Messier 87

First Image of a Black Hole

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration — was designed to capture images of a black hole. Today, in coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers reveal that they have succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow.

Messier 87 Captured by ESO’s Very Large Telescope

This breakthrough was announced today in a series of six papers published in a special issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The image reveals the black hole at the centre of Messier 87 [1], a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides 55 million light-years from Earth and has a mass 6.5 billion times that of the Sun [2].

Artist’s impression of the Black Hole at the heart of M87

The EHT links telescopes around the globe to form an unprecedented Earth-sized virtual telescope [3]. The EHT offers scientists a new way to study the most extreme objects in the Universe predicted by Einstein’s general relativity during the centenary year of the historic experiment that first confirmed the theory [4].

ALMA

"We have taken the first picture of a black hole," said EHT project director Sheperd S. Doeleman of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. "This is an extraordinary scientific feat accomplished by a team of more than 200 researchers."

APEX

Black holes are extraordinary cosmic objects with enormous masses but extremely compact sizes. The presence of these objects affects their environment in extreme ways, warping spacetime and superheating any surrounding material.

Simulation of a Supermassive Black Hole

"If immersed in a bright region, like a disc of glowing gas, we expect a black hole to create a dark region similar to a shadow — something predicted by Einstein’s general relativity that we’ve never seen before," explained chair of the EHT Science Council Heino Falcke of Radboud University, the Netherlands. "This shadow, caused by the gravitational bending and capture of light by the event horizon, reveals a lot about the nature of these fascinating objects and has allowed us to measure the enormous mass of M87’s black hole."

Simulation of a Supermassive Black Hole

Multiple calibration and imaging methods have revealed a ring-like structure with a dark central region — the black hole’s shadow — that persisted over multiple independent EHT observations.

Anatomy of a Black Hole

"Once we were sure we had imaged the shadow, we could compare our observations to extensive computer models that include the physics of warped space, superheated matter and strong magnetic fields. Many of the features of the observed image match our theoretical understanding surprisingly well," remarks Paul T.P. Ho, EHT Board member and Director of the East Asian Observatory [5]. "This makes us confident about the interpretation of our observations, including our estimation of the black hole’s mass."

Simulated Image of an Accreting Black Hole

"The confrontation of theory with observations is always a dramatic moment for a theorist. It was a relief and a source of pride to realise that the observations matched our predictions so well," elaborated EHT Board member Luciano Rezzolla of Goethe Universität, Germany.

The EHT, a Planet-Scale Array

Creating the EHT was a formidable challenge which required upgrading and connecting a worldwide network of eight pre-existing telescopes deployed at a variety of challenging high-altitude sites. These locations included volcanoes in Hawai`i and Mexico, mountains in Arizona and the Spanish Sierra Nevada, the Chilean Atacama Desert, and Antarctica.

Messier 87 in the Constellation of Virgo

The EHT observations use a technique called very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) which synchronises telescope facilities around the world and exploits the rotation of our planet to form one huge, Earth-size telescope observing at a wavelength of 1.3mm. VLBI allows the EHT to achieve an angular resolution of 20 micro-arcseconds — enough to read a newspaper in New York from a café in Paris [6].

The Halo of Galaxy Messier 87

The telescopes contributing to this result were ALMA, APEX, the IRAM 30-meter telescope, the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, the Large Millimeter Telescope Alfonso Serrano, the Submillimeter Array, the Submillimeter Telescope, and the South Pole Telescope [7]. Petabytes of raw data from the telescopes were combined by highly specialised supercomputers hosted by the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy and MIT Haystack Observatory.

Artist’s Impression of a Black Hole Environment

European facilities and funding played a crucial role in this worldwide effort, with the participation of advanced European telescopes and the support from the European Research Council — particularly a €14 million grant for the BlackHoleCam project [8]. Support from ESO, IRAM and the Max Planck Society was also key. "This result builds on decades of European expertise in millimetre astronomy”, commented Karl Schuster, Director of IRAM and member of the EHT Board.

Photon Paths around a Black Hole

The construction of the EHT and the observations announced today represent the culmination of decades of observational, technical, and theoretical work. This example of global teamwork required close collaboration by researchers from around the world. Thirteen partner institutions worked together to create the EHT, using both pre-existing infrastructure and support from a variety of agencies. Key funding was provided by the US National Science Foundation (NSF), the EU's European Research Council (ERC), and funding agencies in East Asia.

Key Concepts in Interferometry

“ESO is delighted to have significantly contributed to this result through its European leadership and pivotal role in two of the EHT’s component telescopes, located in Chile — ALMA and APEX,” commented ESO Director General Xavier Barcons. “ALMA is the most sensitive facility in the EHT, and its 66 high-precision antennas were critical in making the EHT a success.”

Locations of the EHT Telescopes

"We have achieved something presumed to be impossible just a generation ago," concluded Doeleman. "Breakthroughs in technology, connections between the world's best radio observatories, and innovative algorithms all came together to open an entirely new window on black holes and the event horizon.”

Zooming in to the Heart of Messier 87

Artist’s impression of the Black Hole at the heart of M87

Notes:

[1] The shadow of a black hole is the closest we can come to an image of the black hole itself, a completely dark object from which light cannot escape. The black hole’s boundary — the event horizon from which the EHT takes its name — is around 2.5 times smaller than the shadow it casts and measures just under 40 billion km across.

[2] Supermassive black holes are relatively tiny astronomical objects — which has made them impossible to directly observe until now. As the size of a black hole’s event horizon is proportional to its mass, the more massive a black hole, the larger the shadow. Thanks to its enormous mass and relative proximity, M87’s black hole was predicted to be one of the largest viewable from Earth — making it a perfect target for the EHT.

[3] Although the telescopes are not physically connected, they are able to synchronize their recorded data with atomic clocks — hydrogen masers — which precisely time their observations. These observations were collected at a wavelength of 1.3 mm during a 2017 global campaign. Each telescope of the EHT produced enormous amounts of data – roughly 350 terabytes per day – which was stored on high-performance helium-filled hard drives. These data were flown to highly specialised supercomputers — known as correlators — at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy and MIT Haystack Observatory to be combined. They were then painstakingly converted into an image using novel computational tools developed by the collaboration.

[4] 100 years ago, two expeditions set out for Principe Island off the coast of Africa and Sobral in Brazil to observe the 1919 solar eclipse, with the goal of testing general relativity by seeing if starlight would be bent around the limb of the sun, as predicted by Einstein. In an echo of those observations, the EHT has sent team members to some of the world's highest and most isolated radio facilities to once again test our understanding of gravity.

[5] The East Asian Observatory (EAO) partner on the EHT project represents the participation of many regions in Asia, including China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, India and Indonesia.

[6] Future EHT observations will see substantially increased sensitivity with the participation of the IRAM NOEMA Observatory, the Greenland Telescope and the Kitt Peak Telescope.

[7] ALMA is a partnership of the European Southern Observatory (ESO; Europe, representing its member states), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences(NINS) of Japan, together with the National Research Council (Canada), the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST; Taiwan), Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA; Taiwan), and Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI; Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. APEX is operated by ESO, the 30-meter telescope is operated by IRAM (the IRAM Partner Organizations are MPG (Germany), CNRS (France) and IGN (Spain)), the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope is operated by the EAO, the Large Millimeter Telescope Alfonso Serrano is operated by INAOE and UMass, the Submillimeter Array is operated by SAO and ASIAA and the Submillimeter Telescope is operated by the Arizona Radio Observatory (ARO). The South Pole Telescope is operated by the University of Chicago with specialized EHT instrumentation provided by the University of Arizona.

[8] BlackHoleCam is an EU-funded project to image, measure and understand astrophysical black holes. The main goal of BlackHoleCam and the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is to make the first ever images of the billion solar masses black hole in the nearby galaxy M87 and of its smaller cousin, Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our Milky Way. This allows the determination of the deformation of spacetime caused by a black hole with extreme precision.

More information:

This research was presented in a series of six papers published today in a special issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The EHT collaboration involves more than 200 researchers from Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America. The international collaboration is working to capture the most detailed black hole images ever by creating a virtual Earth-sized telescope. Supported by considerable international investment, the EHT links existing telescopes using novel systems — creating a fundamentally new instrument with the highest angular resolving power that has yet been achieved.

The individual telescopes involved are; ALMA, APEX, the IRAM 30-meter Telescope, the IRAM NOEMA Observatory, the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT), the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT), the Submillimeter Array (SMA), the Submillimeter Telescope (SMT), the South Pole Telescope (SPT), the Kitt Peak Telescope, and the Greenland Telescope (GLT).

The EHT consortium consists of 13 stakeholder institutes; the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, the University of Arizona, the University of Chicago, the East Asian Observatory, Goethe-Universitaet Frankfurt, Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique, Large Millimeter Telescope, Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, MIT Haystack Observatory, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Radboud University and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It has 16 Member States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a Strategic Partner. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its world-leading Very Large Telescope Interferometer as well as two survey telescopes, VISTA working in the infrared and the visible-light VLT Survey Telescope. Also at Paranal ESO will host and operate the Cherenkov Telescope Array South, the world’s largest and most sensitive gamma-ray observatory. ESO is also a major partner in two facilities on Chajnantor, APEX and ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre Extremely Large Telescope, the ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”.

Links:

ESO EHT web page: https://www.eso.org/public/science/event-horizon/

Invitation for media to the press conference: https://www.eso.org/public/announcements/ann19018/

EHT Website & Press Release: https://eventhorizontelescope.org/

ESOBlog on the EHT Project: https://www.eso.org/public/blog/photographing-a-black-hole/

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

Images of APEX: https://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/category/apex/

EHT comic by NAOJ (PDF format, 39,1 MB): https://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/pdf/eso1907a.pdf

Papers:

Paper I: The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole:
https://doi.org/110.3847/2041-8213/ab0ec7

Paper II: Array and Instrumentation:
https://doi.org/110.3847/2041-8213/ab0c96

Paper III: Data processing and Calibration:
https://doi.org/110.3847/2041-8213/ab0c57

Paper IV: Imaging the Central Supermassive Black Hole:
http://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ab0e85

Paper V: Physical Origin of the Asymmetric Ring:
https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ab0f43

Paper VI: The Shadow and Mass of the Central Black Hole:
https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ab1141

Images, Text, Credits: ESO/Calum Turner/L. Calçada/M. Kornmesser/Jordy Davelaar et al./Radboud University/BlackHoleCam/Bronzwaer/Davelaar/Moscibrodzka/Falcke/Radboud University/ IAU and Sky & Telescope/Chris Mihos (Case Western Reserve University)/ESO/Nicolle R. Fuller/NSF/NRAO/AUI/NSF; S. Dagnello/EHT/Eduardo Ros/Luciano Rezzolla/Heino Falcke/Videos: ESO/L. Calçada, Digitized Sky Survey 2, ESA/Hubble, RadioAstron, De Gasperin et al., Kim et al., EHT Collaboration. Music: Niklas Falcke/ESO/M. Kornmesser.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

NASA Demos CubeSat Laser Communications Capability

NASA logo.

April 10, 2019

Animation above: A brief laser flash at the center of the frame was part of an experiment conducted by two NASA CubeSats. In it, one small satellite used a laser to send information to the ISARA CubeSat, managed by JPL. Image Credit: The Aerospace Corporation.

Two NASA CubeSats teamed up on an impromptu optical, or laser, communications pointing experiment. The laser beam is seen as a brief flash of light close to the center of the focal plane, to the left of Earth's horizon.

The light originated from the laser communications system onboard one of two Optical Communications and Sensor Demonstration (OCSD) spacecraft. The laser flash was recorded by a short-wavelength infrared camera, one of three cameras comprising the CubeSat Multispectral Observation System (CUMULOS) payload, onboard the Integrated Solar Array and Reflectarray Antenna (ISARA) spacecraft. At the time of the demonstration, the OCSD and ISARA spacecraft were both 280 miles (451 kilometers) above Earth and about 1,500 miles (2,414 kilometers) apart.

Image above: An exploded schematic view of an AeroCube-OCSD CubeSat. Image Credit: The Aerospace Corporation.

The optical communications beam was deliberately aimed at and swept across the ISARA camera. This demonstration shows that an optical crosslink between two CubeSats is feasible with proper pointing and alignment of the emitting and receiving spacecraft. Optimizing this capability could enable constellations of small satellites to transfer high volume data between one another in low-Earth orbit or even in orbit around the Moon.

Characteristics built into the design and operation of small spacecraft enable impromptu experiments such as this optical crosslink test. Their flexibility and responsiveness provide mission operators the ability to take advantage of opportunities to perform additional maneuvers and procedures not previously envisioned for a particular mission. Originally designed to be Earth facing, both the ISARA camera and OCSD laser were tipped onto their "sides" to point at one another to accomplish this additional crosslink achievement, an operation much more difficult for larger spacecraft.

AeroCube-7B and Aerocube-7C. Image Credit: Aerospace Corporation

Other features in this image include a star (R Doradus, one of the brightest infrared stars in the sky) that can be seen moving diagonally down toward the right side of the frame as the satellites orbit Earth, and Earth's horizon as it meets space. Other subtle stationary points of white are "hot pixels" or digital noise from the camera.

CUMULOS is an Aerospace Corporation experimental three camera remote sensing payload hosted on NASA's ISARA small spacecraft mission, which was deployed to low-Earth orbit in December 2017. The ISARA mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The OCSD spacecraft were developed and are operated by The Aerospace Corporation. The OCSD and ISARA missions are funded by NASA's Small Spacecraft Technology (SST) program within the agency's Space Technology Mission Directorate.

Related links:

Aerospace Corporation: https://aerospace.org/?utm_source=gophotonics

NASA CubeSats: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cubesats/index.html

Optical Communications and Sensor Demonstration (OCSD): https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/small_spacecraft/ocsd_project.html

Integrated Solar Array and Reflectarray Antenna (ISARA): https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/small_spacecraft/isara_project.html

For more information on NASA space technology, please visit: https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/home/index.html

Images (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Clare Skelly/JPL/Arielle Samuelson.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

mardi 9 avril 2019

LS2 Report: SPS receives major facelift for new beam dump

CERN - European Organization for Nuclear Research logo.

9 April, 2019

The installation and commissioning of the new facility is one of the biggest challenges of LS2 for the SPS team

Image above: The EXC5 cavern in the foreground will house the new beam dump of the SPS; the service cavern is visible in the background (Image: CERN).

The Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) is undergoing an overdue overhaul. Its beam dump, which was previously at point 1 of the SPS, will be replaced by a new one located across the ring at SPS point 5. The new beam dump being constructed requires extensive civil-engineering work to house and operate it, which is one of the primary tasks for the SPS team during the second long shutdown (LS2) of CERN’s accelerator complex.

When a beam of protons or heavy ions accelerating through the SPS needs to be brought to a stop, it is redirected into a beam dump that absorbs the particle beam, terminating its flight. “We need a bigger dump for the SPS due to the higher energies of circulating particles following the LHC Injector Upgrade (LIU) project,” explains Jonathan Meignan, who is coordinating the project to replace the SPS beam dump. After scouting for a suitable location, it was decided to install the new beam dump at an opposite point in the SPS ring, where there is sufficient space for the dump and the additional infrastructure it needs.

Image above: Jonathan Meignan in front of part of the shielding for the new SPS beam dump (Image: Achintya Rao/CERN).

The task is however a difficult one, involving several related works. The underground cavern that will house the new beam dump, known as ECX5, was the location of the erstwhile UA1 detector, which discovered the W and Z bosons in 1983 when the SPS was operated as a proton–antiproton collider. It will need to be drastically modified to incorporate the services needed for the modifications to the SPS. For example, the transport zone next to the SPS tubes, which is used by both personnel and equipment, will have to be rerouted so it skirts the voluminous beam dump and its large shielding. The SPS tunnel will therefore undergo digging to widen a section of it by about one metre to accommodate the new shape of the transport zone.

Kicker magnets, which are responsible for deflecting the travelling particles into the dump-bound trajectories, have to be installed in Long Straight Section 5 of the SPS leading up to the beam dump. “To prepare for this installation, the beamlines within LSS5 had to be completely removed,” remarks Meignan. Simultaneously with this removal, an intense decabling campaign was conducted to free space for the new cables. More than 135 km of obsolete cables were removed, notes Meignan. New cables, including high-voltage cables for the kickers, have been installed, snaking all the way from LSS5 to the service cavern adjacent to ECX5, where their instrumentation and control systems will be located.

The crane suspended from the roof of ECX5, which can be used to move the large blocks making up the beam dump, has been upgraded as well. “The crane was fitted with cameras during the last year-end technical stop,” says Meignan, “and equipped for remote control from the service cavern, to minimise the radiation exposure of the operators.”

As of early April, ECX5 has been isolated from the rest of the SPS to conduct these civil-engineering activities, which are expected to be finished in December. At the same time, the dump and its shielding, which is made of steel, concrete and marble surrounding the inner core, is being assembled on the surface above its future home. In the new year, the beamline will be reconnected and the dump will be installed before being commissioned.

We will return to the SPS and its many LS2 activities in a future report.

Note:

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is one of the world’s largest and most respected centres for scientific research. Its business is fundamental physics, finding out what the Universe is made of and how it works. At CERN, the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments are used to study the basic constituents of matter — the fundamental particles. By studying what happens when these particles collide, physicists learn about the laws of Nature.

The instruments used at CERN are particle accelerators and detectors. Accelerators boost beams of particles to high energies before they are made to collide with each other or with stationary targets. Detectors observe and record the results of these collisions.

Founded in 1954, the CERN Laboratory sits astride the Franco–Swiss border near Geneva. It was one of Europe’s first joint ventures and now has 23 Member States.

Related links:

Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS): https://home.cern/science/accelerators/super-proton-synchrotron

Second long shutdown (LS2): https://home.cern/tags/long-shutdown-2

CERN’s accelerator complex: https://home.cern/science/accelerators/accelerator-complex

For more information about European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Visit: https://home.cern/

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: CERN.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Post-Spacewalk Checkups and Space Research Before U.S. Cargo Deliveries

ISS - Expedition 59 Mission patch.

April 9, 2019

The Expedition 59 crew has switched focus from Monday’s spacewalk to microgravity science aboard the International Space Station. Soon, the orbital residents will be unpacking a pair of U.S. space freighters.

Astronauts Anne McClain of NASA and David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency are conducting their post-spacewalk medical checkups today. The astronauts measured their temperature, blood pressure, respiration and ear condition. After the checkups, the spacewalkers had their eyes scanned with an ultrasound device by Flight Engineer Nick Hague.

Image above: Expedition 59 Flight Engineer David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency takes a quick self portrait during a spacewalk while working outside the International Space Station. Image Credit: NASA TV.

The spacewalking duo along with NASA astronaut Christina Koch also had an hour-long video debrief session with specialists on the ground. The crew and mission controllers discussed lessons they learned that could inform the planning of future spacewalks.

Koch spent most of her day on maintenance replacing science hardware inside the Combustion Integrated Rack. The research device enables safe investigations of microgravity’s impacts on solid and gaseous fuel combustion aboard the orbital lab. Hague explored how blood flows to the brain for the Cerebral Autoregulation study. The brain research uses Doppler technology that measures blood flow waveforms to help doctors understand and treat space-caused lightheadedness.

International Space Station (ISS)

With the recent series of spacewalks now complete, the crew will soon be turning its attention to the arrival of two resupply ships. Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus cargo craft and the SpaceX Dragon will each deliver science and supplies before the end of the month to replenish the space station crew. Cygnus is due to blast off for a three-month mission attached to the station’s Unity module April 17. Dragon is targeted to liftoff at the end of April for a month-long stay at the Harmony module.

Related links:

Expedition 59: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition59/index.html

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

Cerebral Autoregulation: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=1938

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, Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Space Station Science Highlights: Week of April 1, 2019

ISS - Expedition 59 Mission patch.

April 9, 2019

Astronauts on the International Space Station continue to sustain a high level of activity, following two recent spacewalks and the addition of new crew members in March. The Expedition 59 crew began preparation for a third spacewalk and arrival of resupply ships from both SpaceX and Northrop Grumman in April, bringing more science experiments to the orbiting lab.

Here are details on a few of the scientific investigations conducted during the week of April 1 on the space station:

Guided by the moon and stars

Image above: Canadian Space Agency astronaut David Saint-Jacques in the ISS cupola with a camera assembly for collecting images of the moon and adjacent star fields. Algorithms used onboard the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle to determine its position are used to analyze these images on the ground. Comparing the station’s derived position to its known position at the moment each photo was taken helps validate the optical navigation system’s performance using ISS as the test vehicle.
Image Credit: NASA.

Over the weekend, the crew performed two sessions for Moon Imagery, photographing the moon’s phases during one 29-day cycle in images of varying brightness. Should a spacecraft lose communication with the ground or with NASA’s Deep Space Network, its crew must navigate as ancient mariners did, using the moon and stars. Moon Imagery collects pictures of the moon from the space station and uses them to calibrate navigation software. This software could guide the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle in case its transponder-based navigation capability is lost. NASA is developing Orion as the exploration vehicle to carry humans farther into space than ever before.

How to feel at home in space

The Canadian Space Agency’s At Home in Space investigation assesses culture, values, and psychosocial adaptation of astronauts to a space environment shared by multinational crews on long-duration missions. Researchers suspect that astronauts develop a shared culture as an adaptive strategy for handling cultural differences and deal with the isolated confined environment of the spacecraft by creating a home in space. Last week, the crew completed questionnaires used to evaluate individual and culturally related differences, family functioning, values, coping with stress, and post-experience growth.

Animation above: NASA astronaut Anne McClain preps the camera for an ISS Experience filming session. Animation Credit: NASA.

Virtual visits to the space station

The virtual reality film The ISS Experience shares life aboard the orbiting lab and science activities conducted there with different audiences on Earth. Last week, crew members recorded an ISS crew conference to create an 8 to 10 minute video. The six-month investigation covers various aspects of crew life, execution of science experiments, and the international partnerships involved.

Image above: Wasabi growing in the Vegetable Production System for the Veg-03 study exploring how crew members can grow their own food to sustain long-term space missions. The plants are harvested on-orbit and samples returned to Earth for testing. Image Credit: NASA.

Other investigations on which the crew performed work:

- Future long-duration space missions will require crew members to grow their own food. Veg-03H uses the Veggie plant growth facility to cultivate Extra Dwarf Pak Choi and Wasabi mustard for harvest on-orbit: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=1159

- The Combustion Integrated Rack (CIR) includes an optics bench, combustion chamber, fuel and oxidizer control, and five different cameras for performing combustion investigations in microgravity: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Facility.html?#id=317

- The Material Science Research Rack (MSRR) is used for basic materials research in the microgravity environment of the ISS and can accommodate and support diverse Experiment Modules: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Facility.html?#id=318

- Food Acceptability examines changes in the appeal of food aboard the space station during long-duration missions: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7562

- The Behavioral Core Measures investigation analyzes whether a standardized suite of measurements can rapidly and reliably assess the risk of adverse cognitive or behavioral conditions and psychiatric disorders during long-duration spaceflight: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7537

- Standard Measures captures a consistent, optimized, and minimal set of measures from crew members throughout the ISS Program in order to characterize adaptive responses to and risks of living in space: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7711

Space to Ground: Express Delivery: 04/05/2019

Related links:

Expedition 59: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition59/index.html

Moon Imagery: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=1794

Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle: https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/orion/index.html

At Home in Space: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=1727

The ISS Experience: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7877

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

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

Images (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Video (NASA), Text, Credits: NASA/Michael Johnson/Jorge Sotomayor, Lead Increment Scientist Expeditions 59/60.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch