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31/08/2023

China launches Gaofen Earth-observation satellite (video): Follow my page

A Long March 4C rocket lifted off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 11:45 a.m. EDT on Aug. 20 (1745 GMT; 1:45 a.m. Beijing time on Aug. 21), according to the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).

The Long March 4C's exhaust plume illuminated insulation tiles that fell away from the rocket as it climbed into the night sky above Jiuquan in the Gobi Desert.

Aboard was the Gaofen 12 (04) satellite, which is now in a near-polar orbit with an average altitude of around 373 miles (600 kilometers), according to U.S. Space Force tracking data. The satellite will likely raise its orbit to match that of the three other Gaofen 12 satellites, which launched in 2019, 2021 and 2022.

23/08/2023

29/06/2023

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08/02/2023

The Hardest Walk Is Walking ☝👤. But Its Also The . 💪🤙

28/11/2022

Red planet day

11/02/2020

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NASA's Mars sample-return plans get a boost in 2021 budget request

'Mars Future Missions' get $233 million in the newly unveiled 2021 budget request.

The White House's proposed 2021 federal budget helps keep the ball rolling on one of planetary science's highest priorities, Mars sample return, and funds development of a potential mission that would map water ice on the Red Planet.

The 2021 budget request, which was released yesterday (Feb. 10), allocates $25.2 billion to NASA, about 12% more than the space agency is getting this year. That proposed outlay includes $233 million for "Mars Future Missions," one of which aims to get pristine pieces of the Red Planet to Earth, possibly as early as 2031.

"Mars Future supports the development of the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission that is planning to enter formulation (Phase A) as early as the summer of FY [fiscal year] 2020," NASA officials wrote in a description of the agency's proposed 2021 allocation.

"In FY 2021, MSR formulation activities include concept and technology development, and early design and studies in support of the Sample Return Lander and the Capture/Containment and Return System," they added. "Mars Future also supports a study of the facility required for handling of returned samples."
Sample collection starts soon
The samples in question will be collected by NASA's Mars 2020 rover, which is scheduled to launch this July and land in February 2021 inside the Red Planet's Jezero Crater. The Mars 2020 team will seek out and collect material deemed to have the potential to preserve ancient biosignatures, if any are to be found at Jezero.

This Red Planet rock and dirt will be sealed in several dozen canisters for future return to Earth, where scientists can interrogate the stuff in detail in labs around the world. (Mars 2020 will also hunt for ancient life on its own in Jezero, using its much more limited instrumentation.)

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The delivery of these samples to Earth will be executed in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA), which recently confirmed its financial commitment to this complex endeavor. As currently envisioned, the MSR campaign features two 2026 launches: those of NASA's Sample Return Lander (SRL) mission and ESA's Earth Return Orbiter (ERO).

SRL will carry a small rocket called the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) and an ESA-built Sample Fetch Rover (SRF). The SRF will grab the Mars 2020 samples and haul them back to the MAV (possibly getting an assist in this work from the Mars 2020 rover). The MAV will then launch the samples to Mars orbit, where they'll be snagged by the ERO, which will carry them back toward Earth. The ERO will ultimately jettison the sample-harboring container, which will land in the Utah desert in 2031.

The above is the notional plan; the dates and other details are not official yet.

As the NASA budget document noted, great care will be taken in the handling of the Mars samples once they get here. A Sample Receiving Facility will be built at an as-yet-undetermined location to vet the Red Planet rocks, ensuring that Earth microbes don't contaminate the precious samples (and that any Mars bugs that may be lurking in the canisters don't get out into the Earth environment, either).

Related: Decade of Mars: How the 2020s a new era of Red Planet exploration

Mars Ice Mapper, too
The "Mars Future Missions" line in the 2021 budget request covers more than just sample return, however.

"Also included is funding for a potential collaboration with Canada on the Mars Ice Mapper," NASA officials wrote in the budget document. "The Mars Ice Mapper is a remote sensing mission under study intended to map and profile the near-surface (3-15 meters) water ice, particularly that which lies in the mid-latitude regions, in support of future science and exploration missions."

The Mars Ice Mapper would presumably aid the effort to put astronauts on the Red Planet, which NASA aims to do in the 2030s. The agency hasn't revealed much about this potential mission to date, though another NASA budget document identifies a target launch date of 2027.

The 2021 budget request gives more money to future Mars missions than its immediate predecessors did; the 2020 and 2019 proposed White House budgets allocated $109 million and $50 million to this line, respectively.

And Mars sample return and the Mars Ice Mapper will get more and more money as the 2020s unfold, if the 2021 request is any guide. The request envisions allocating $406 million to Mars Future Missions in 2022, $551 million in 2023, $713 million in 2024 and $775 million in 2025.

But there's an important caveat to this entire discussion: We don't know how good a guide the 2021 budget request will end up being. White House budget requests are just proposals; budgets must be enacted by Congress, which has the power of the purse. Budget requests and enacted budgets are often quite different, so we'll just have to wait and see what legislators approve.

Bringing pieces of Mars to Earth in 2031: How NASA and Europe plan to do it
The search for life on Mars (a photo timeline)
In photos: President Donald Trump and NASA
Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter . Follow us on Twitter or Facebook.

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08/02/2020

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The Sky This Week from February 7 to 16

Mercury puts on its best evening show of 2020 this week, though every bright planet appears at some point during the night.

A colorful Mercury
The innermost planet looks stunning in this false-color view from NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft, which orbited Mercury from 2011 to 2015. The giant Caloris impact basin is the circular tan-colored region at upper right.
NASA/JHUAPL/CIW
Friday, February 7
This is a good week to look for Sirius in the evening sky. The night sky’s brightest star (at magnitude –1.5) appears some 20° above the southeastern horizon once darkness falls and climbs highest in the south around 9:30 p.m. local time. It then lies about one-third of the way from the horizon to the zenith as seen from mid-northern latitudes. (The farther south you live, the higher it appears.) If you point binoculars at Sirius, look for the pretty star cluster M41 in the same field of view, just 4° below the star.

Saturday, February 8
Full Moon occurs at 2:33 a.m. EST tomorrow morning (11:33 p.m. PST this evening), but our satellite looks completely illuminated all night. You can find it rising in the east around sunset and peaking high in the south just after midnight. The Moon spends the night near the border between the constellations Cancer the Crab and Leo the Lion.

Sunday, February 9
The nearly fully lit Moon appears in the company of 1st-magnitude Regulus tonight. The pair rises in the east before 7 p.m. local time and climbs high in the south around 1 a.m. Only 4° — about eight times the Moon’s apparent diameter — separate the two.

Although Jupiter passed on the far side of the Sun from Earth just six weeks ago, it has returned to view before dawn. The giant planet rises nearly two hours before the Sun and climbs 8° above the southeastern horizon an hour before sunup. Shining at magnitude –1.9, Jupiter stands out nicely against the twilight glow.

MercuryatGEE210
Catch the innermost planet
Mercury puts on a great show this week, which culminates at greatest elongation February 10, when it shines brightly at magnitude –0.6 in evening twilight.
Astronomy: Roen Kelly
Monday, February 10
Mercury climbs to its maximum altitude in the evening sky tonight, when it lies some 11° high in the west-southwest 30 minutes after sunset. This peak coincides with the planet reaching its greatest elongation from the Sun. Mercury shines at magnitude –0.6, so it should be easy to spot in the deepening twilight. If you can’t see it with your naked eye, binoculars will show it easily. Target the planet through a telescope and you will see a 7"-diameter disk that appears half-lit.

Tonight may be your last best chance to track down Neptune during its current apparition. The outermost major planet glows at magnitude 8.0, so you’ll need to wait until darkness falls and then use binoculars or a telescope to find it. Neptune’s low altitude — it lies barely 8° above the western horizon as twilight ends — only adds to the challenge. What makes tonight so appealing for a planet quest is that the ice giant world skims just 2' north of the 4th-magnitude star Phi (φ) Aquarii. That’s about the separation between Io and Jupiter when the innermost jovian moon reaches greatest elongation. To confirm a Neptune sighting, aim a telescope at your suspected target. Only the planet shows a 2.2"-diameter disk and subtle blue-gray color.

The Moon reaches perigee, the closest point in its orbit around Earth, at 3:28 p.m. EST. It then lies 223,980 miles (360,461 kilometers) away from us.

Tuesday, February 11
Tonight should provide your first good opportunity of 2020 to view the zodiacal light. From the Northern Hemisphere, late winter and early spring are the best times of year to observe this elusive glow after sunset. It appears slightly fainter than the Milky Way, so you’ll need a clear moonless sky and an observing site located far from the city. With the waning gibbous Moon now exiting the early evening sky, the next two weeks will be prime viewing times. Look for the cone-shaped glow, which has a broad base and points nearly straight up from the western horizon, after the last vestiges of twilight have faded away.

Wednesday, February 12
Ruddy Mars continues to grace the predawn sky this week. The Red Planet now rises before 4 a.m. local time and climbs 20° above the southeastern horizon an hour before sunrise. Mars glows at magnitude 1.3 against the backdrop of Sagittarius the Archer, having crossed the border from Ophiuchus the Serpent-bearer just yesterday. Although the passage from Ophiuchus into Sagittarius is little more than a technical milestone, it does set up a series of pretty conjunctions with some of the Archer’s deep-sky gems next week. Unfortunately, a telescope doesn’t add much to our current view of the planet, revealing a bland disk that measures just 5" across.

Thursday, February 13
Although Saturn passed on the opposite side of the Sun from Earth only a month ago, it already appears low in the southeast before dawn. Look for the magnitude 0.6 ringed planet some 10° to the lower left of brilliant Jupiter. Saturn’s low altitude means it won’t look like much through a telescope, though that will change in the coming months.

Friday, February 14
In what seems a fitting tribute, the planet named after the Roman goddess of love shines brilliantly in the evening sky on Valentine’s Day. Venus gleams at magnitude –4.2 and shows up easily in the west-southwest within a half-hour after sunset. It grows even more prominent as darkness settles over the landscape. The planet doesn’t set until a bit after 8:30 p.m. local time. If you turn a telescope on Venus, you’ll see a disk that spans 17" and appears about two-thirds lit.

Saturday, February 15
Last Quarter Moon occurs at 5:17 p.m. EST. Look for it either before dawn this morning (when it lies among the background stars of Libra and looks slightly more than half-lit) or after it rises around 1:30 a.m. local time tomorrow (when it stands against the backdrop of northern Scorpius and appears as a fat crescent).

M46for2720STW
Open star cluster M46
This week affords a nice opportunity for binocular users to view the bright star clusters M46 and M47 in Puppis. Through a telescope, planetary nebula NGC 2438 makes M46 look even more spectacular.
Dan Crowson
Sunday, February 16
A pair of fine binocular objects are on display tonight. The open star clusters M46 and M47 reside about a degree apart in the northwestern corner of the constellation Puppis the Stern. The two lie about 12° east-northeast of the sky’s brightest star, Sirius. The western cluster, M47, glows at 4th magnitude and appears as a fuzzy patch sprinkled with several pinpoint stars. Sixth-magnitude M46 shows up as a hazy collection of faint stars that is hard to resolve under most conditions. Although it contains nearly twice as many stars as M47, M46 appears fainter and fuzzier because it lies some three times farther from Earth.

06/02/2020

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Christina Koch Completes 328-Day Mission in Space

Astronaut Christina Koch smiles as she gives a “thumbs up” sign shortly after being extracted from the Soyuz MS-13 crew ship that brought her home after 328 days in space. Credit: NASA TV
Setting a record for the longest single spaceflight in history by a woman, NASA astronaut Christina Koch, Soyuz Commander Alexander Skvortsov of Roscosmos and Luca Parmitano of ESA (European Space Agency) landed on Earth at 4:12 a.m. EST in Kazakhstan, southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan. The trio departed the International Space Station in their Soyuz MS-13 spacecraft at 12:50 a.m.

For Parmitano and Skvortsov, this landing completed a 201-day stay in space, 3,216 orbits of Earth and a journey of 85.2 million miles.

Koch’s first journey into space became a 328-day mission in which she orbited Earth 5,248 times, a journey of 139 million miles, roughly the equivalent of 291 trips to the Moon and back. She conducted and supported more than 210 investigations during Expeditions 59, 60, and 61, including as a research subject volunteer to provide scientists the opportunity to observe effects of long-duration spaceflight on a woman as the agency plans to return to the Moon under the Artemis program and prepare for human exploration of Mars.

One particular research project in which Koch participated is the Vertebral Strength investigation, which better defines the extent of spaceflight-induced bone and muscle degradation of the spine, and the associated risk for broken vertebrae. This timely endeavor is expected to provide insight into the development of future countermeasures, such as preventative medicine or exercise. These results also could provide recommendations for limiting the amount of force astronauts are subjected to during launch.

30/01/2020

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27/01/2020

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20 Starship Prototypes on the way

Elon Musk Plans To Send 1 Million People To Mars By 2050
By Narendra Sarma -January 23, 2020
1 Million People To Mars
via


If there is a way to create another Earth, then space monster Elon Musk would have surely done it. Unfortunately, we don’t have one. So, Elon Musk decided to send 1 million people to Mars by launching 3 Starship rockets every day.

Recently, Elon Musk responded to so many tweets and discussed the plan he has for Mars. He said that he wants to achieve that milestone by 2050. His ambitious plan of populating Mars and creating jobs for people got the attention it deserved.

Starship – the system that will transport 1 million people To Mars
Starship - the system that will transport 1 million people To Mars
via
The towering rocket system, Starship production is on full swing and Musk revealed that he plans to launch 1,000 Starships. Also, he wants to land humans and cargo on Mars as early as possible.

The great thing about this mission is that thousands of jobs on Red Planet is possible. Still not convinced to leave earth?

Elon Musk estimated that he needs a lot of Starships to make sure that it is possible to build a permanent settlement. “Megatons per year to orbit are needed for life to become multi-planetary,” Musk tweeted.

If we go as per theory, transport of 100 megatons of stuff is possible by launching 1,000 Starships. Musk’s goal is to that much volume to Mars every year.


Starship to carry people and cargo to the red planet
Starship to carry people and cargo to the red planet
via
Musk didn’t reveal about Starship would carry other than people and cargo. We know that food, water, advanced life support systems and building materials are essential to living on Mars. Let’s not make any assumption, Musk may surprise us with his ideas.

Each Starship can carry 100 passengers and sending 1 million people won’t be a big deal once the system is tested. If this mission is achieved, Starship would be the most reliable and powerful space launch system ever.

Every 26 months, planets Earth and Mars align. This would be of great help for Starship as it consumes low fuel to reach Mars.

20 Starship Prototypes on the way
20 Starship Prototypes on the way
via
Before March 2020, Musk is planning to launch another prototype of Starship. The reason for delays in testing prototypes is pretty clear. Back in 2019, the 16-story Starship prototype exploded during fuel tank pressurisation test.

To bring the best design possible, 20 different prototypes to be built by SpaceX engineers.

22-story Rocket booster, Super Heavy, will play a vital role in launching Starships into Earth’s orbit. Once the booster runs out of fuel, Starship gets disconnected, making way into the Earth’s orbit.

25/01/2020

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23/01/2020

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It's time to say goodbye to NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Here's why.

By Meghan Bartels 8 hours ago

It's one of NASA's Great Observatories.
An artist's depiction of the Spitzer Space Telescope at work observing our galaxy in infrared.

How does NASA know it's time to end a mission? For the Spitzer Space Telescope, the agency can blame it on the spacecraft's juice.

Specifically, Spitzer's struggle comes from trying to balance charging its battery, communicating with Earth and keeping its instruments cool. When it launched in 2003, those tasks didn't interfere much with each other, but the longer the mission continued, the bigger a challenge it became. And so, on Jan. 30, more than 16 years after its launch, NASA will send the spacecraft its final commands.

"There is a natural end to the mission and we are reaching it," Luisa Rebull, an astronomer at the NASA Infrared Science Archive at the California Institute of Technology, which hosts Spitzer's data, told Space.com.

Spitzer was designed to focus on infrared light, which lets scientists see through dust that obscures the view of other types of telescopes. During its tenure, it has used that talent to tackle astronomical puzzles like how stars and planets form.

"We see star-forming regions, we see galaxies forming and merging and just a whole cornucopia of objects in space that are not visible to our eyes in the optical, but are visible in the infrared," Suzanne Dodd, former mission manager for Spitzer, said during a news conference held today (Jan. 22).

That's because of something special about Spitzer.

"One of the unique things about Spitzer that makes this all possible is its orbit," Dodd said. Spitzer orbits the sun, tagging along behind Earth and slipping a bit farther away from us each year. "It's drifting from the Earth and the moon, so it's not getting the infrared radiation that the Earth and moon system create." Without that interference, Spitzer can gather better data.

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Home News Spaceflight
It's time to say goodbye to NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Here's why.
By Meghan Bartels 8 hours ago

It's one of NASA's Great Observatories.






An artist's depiction of the Spitzer Space Telescope at work observing our galaxy in infrared.
An artist's depiction of the Spitzer Space Telescope at work observing our galaxy in infrared.
(Image: © NASA/JPL-Caltech)
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How does NASA know it's time to end a mission? For the Spitzer Space Telescope, the agency can blame it on the spacecraft's juice.

Specifically, Spitzer's struggle comes from trying to balance charging its battery, communicating with Earth and keeping its instruments cool. When it launched in 2003, those tasks didn't interfere much with each other, but the longer the mission continued, the bigger a challenge it became. And so, on Jan. 30, more than 16 years after its launch, NASA will send the spacecraft its final commands.

"There is a natural end to the mission and we are reaching it," Luisa Rebull, an astronomer at the NASA Infrared Science Archive at the California Institute of Technology, which hosts Spitzer's data, told Space.com.

Related: Gallery: The Infrared Universe Seen by Spitzer Telescope

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Spitzer was designed to focus on infrared light, which lets scientists see through dust that obscures the view of other types of telescopes. During its tenure, it has used that talent to tackle astronomical puzzles like how stars and planets form.

"We see star-forming regions, we see galaxies forming and merging and just a whole cornucopia of objects in space that are not visible to our eyes in the optical, but are visible in the infrared," Suzanne Dodd, former mission manager for Spitzer, said during a news conference held today (Jan. 22).

That's because of something special about Spitzer.

"One of the unique things about Spitzer that makes this all possible is its orbit," Dodd said. Spitzer orbits the sun, tagging along behind Earth and slipping a bit farther away from us each year. "It's drifting from the Earth and the moon, so it's not getting the infrared radiation that the Earth and moon system create." Without that interference, Spitzer can gather better data.

But eventually, that orbit means the spacecraft will be on the opposite side of the sun from Earth for a long period of time — a clear no-go for space communications. Right now, Spitzer is about a third of an orbit behind Earth, so the sun isn't yet blocking communications.

19/01/2020

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Andromeda Galaxy Facts

The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is the closest large galaxy to the Milky Way and is one of a few galaxies that can be seen unaided from the Earth. In approximately 4.5 billion years the Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way are expected to collide and the result will be a giant elliptical galaxy. Andromeda is accompanied by 14 dwarf galaxies, including M32, M110, and possibly M33 (The Triangulum Galaxy).

Andromeda Galaxy Profile

Designation: M31 or NGC 224
Type: Spiral
Diameter: 220,000 ly
Distance: 2.54 Mly
Mass: 1,230 billion M☉
Number of Stars 1 trillion
Constellation: Andromeda
Group: Local Group
Facts about Andromeda

While Andromeda is the largest galaxy in the Local Cluster it may not be the most massive. The Milky May is thought to contain more dark matter, which could make it much more massive.
Since it is the nearest spiral galaxy to us, astronomers use the Andromeda Galaxy to understand the origin and evolution of such galaxies.
The Andromeda Galaxy is approaching the Milky Way at approximately 100 to 140 kilometres per second.
The Andromeda Galaxy has a very crowded double nucleus. Not only does it have a massive star cluster right at its heart, but it also has at least one supermassive black hole hidden at the core.
The spiral arms of the Andromeda Galaxy are being distorted by gravitational interactions with two companion galaxies, M32 and M110.
The Andromeda Galaxy has at least two spiral arms, plus a ring of dust that may have come from the smaller galaxy M32. Astronomers think that it may have interacted more closely with Andromeda several hundred million years ago, when M32 plunged through the heart of its larger neighbor.
There are at least 450 globular clusters orbiting in and around the Andromeda Galaxy. Some of them are among the most densely populated globulars ever seen.
The Andromeda Galaxy is the most distant object you can spot with the naked eye. You need a good spot away from bright lights in order to see it.

18/01/2020

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Elon Musk is still thinking big with SpaceX's Starship Mars-colonizing rocket. Really big.

Musk envisions fleets of 1,000 Starships departing for Mars every 26 months.

Surprise, surprise: Elon Musk is thinking big.

SpaceX's billionaire founder and CEO outlined some ambitious goals for the company's Starship Mars-colonization system during a flurry of Twitter posts on Thursday (Jan. 16).

The Starship architecture consists of a big spaceship called Starship, which Musk has said will be capable of carrying up to 100 people, and a giant rocket named Super Heavy. Both of these vehicles will be reusable; indeed, rapid and frequent reuse is key to Musk's overall vision, which involves cutting the cost of spaceflight enough to make Mars colonization and other bold exploration feats economically feasible.

Starship design goal is 3 flights/day avg rate, so ~1000 flights/year at >100 tons/flight, so every 10 ships yield 1 megaton per year to orbitJanuary 17, 2020

And "frequent reuse" is a bit of an understatement, it would seem. In one of Thursday's tweets, for example, Musk wrote that the eventual goal is to launch each Starship vehicle three times per day on average. Each Starship will be able to carry about 100 tons of payload to orbit, so, at that flight rate, every vehicle would loft about 100,000 tons annually, he explained.

And there won't be just one Starship — far from it, if everything goes according to Musk's plan.

"Building 100 Starships/year gets to 1000 in 10 years or 100 megatons/year or maybe around 100k people per Earth-Mars orbital sync," Musk wrote in another Thursday tweet.

"Orbital sync" refers to an alignment of the two planets that's favorable for interplanetary travel, which comes along just once every 26 months. So, Musk envisions huge fleets of Starships departing during these windows.

14/01/2020

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NASA graduates new class of astronauts for missions to the moon, Mars

The newly minted astronauts are the first to receive their pins under the space agency's Artemis program.
NASA's newest astronauts are ready to come out of their shells and walk on the moon.

Nicknamed the "Turtles," the space agency's 22nd class of astronauts graduated from basic training and became eligible for spaceflight assignments on Friday. A ceremony held at the Johnson Space Center in Houston honored the 11 Americans, together with two Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronauts who trained with them.

The new class, which includes six women and seven men, expands NASA's active corps to 48 members. CSA has now doubled its ranks to four with the graduation of this, its fourth group of astronauts.