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February 29, 2024

PACE Separation

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Wikipedia dicit:

Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) is a NASA Earth-observing satellite mission that will continue and advance observations of global ocean color, biogeochemistry, and ecology, as well as the carbon cycle, aerosols and clouds. PACE will be used to identify the extent and duration of phytoplankton blooms and improve understanding of air quality. These and other uses of PACE data will benefit the economy and society, especially sectors that rely on water quality, fisheries and food security.

PACE has two fundamental science goals: “to extend key systematic ocean color, aerosol, and cloud data records for Earth system and climate studies, and to address new and emerging science questions using its advanced instruments, surpassing the capabilities of previous and current missions”. The ocean and atmosphere are directly connected, moving and transferring energy, water, nutrients, gases, aerosols, and pollutants. Aerosols, clouds, and phytoplankton can also affect one another.

PACE will measure atmospheric particles and clouds that scatter and absorb sunlight. Improved characterization of aerosol particles will enable quantifying their impact on marine biology and ocean chemistry, as well as Earth’s energy budget and ecological forecasting. PACE will enable scientists to better monitor fisheries, identify harmful algal blooms, and observe changes in marine resources. The color of the ocean is determined by the interaction of sunlight with substances or particles present in seawater such as chlorophyll, a green pigment found in most phytoplankton species. By monitoring global phytoplankton distribution and abundance, the mission will contribute toward understanding the complex systems that drive ocean ecology.

Video credit: SpaceX/NASA’s Kennedy Space Center

 

February 28, 2024

PACE Launch

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Wikipedia dicit:

Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) is a NASA Earth-observing satellite mission that will continue and advance observations of global ocean color, biogeochemistry, and ecology, as well as the carbon cycle, aerosols and clouds. PACE will be used to identify the extent and duration of phytoplankton blooms and improve understanding of air quality. These and other uses of PACE data will benefit the economy and society, especially sectors that rely on water quality, fisheries and food security.

After being proposed for cancellation under President Trump’s FY 2018 budget, it was restored by Congress. The PACE project is managed by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The main instrument and bus were designed and built at Goddard Space Flight Center.

On 4 February 2020, NASA announced the selection of SpaceX to launch PACE on a Falcon 9, at a total cost to NASA of US$80.4 million, including the launch service and other mission-related costs. The total cost of the mission is $964 million, which includes spacecraft construction, launch, and operations. PACE successfully launched on 8 February 2024.

Video credit: SpaceX/NASA’s Kennedy Space Center

 

February 26, 2024

Dream Chaser

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Wikipedia dicit:

Dream Chaser is an American reusable lifting-body spaceplane being developed by Sierra Space. Originally intended as a crewed vehicle, the Dream Chaser Space System is set to be produced after the Dream Chaser Cargo System cargo variant is operational. The crewed variant is planned to carry up to seven people and cargo to and from low Earth orbit.

The cargo Dream Chaser is designed to resupply the International Space Station with both pressurized and unpressurized cargo. It is intended to launch vertically on the Vulcan Centaur rocket and autonomously land horizontally on conventional runways. A proposed version to be operated by ESA would launch on an Arianespace vehicle.

Video credit: Sierra Space

 

January 31, 2024

Remember Fallen Heroes

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They will always be remembered…

Apollo 1 (January 27, 1967)

Virgil “Gus” Grissom – Commander, Edward White – Command Pilot, Roger Chaffee – Pilot

STS-51 L (January 28, 1986)

Francis R. Scobee – Commander, Michael J. Smith – Pilot, Judith A. Resnik – Mission Specialist 1, Ellison Onizuka – Mission Specialist 2, Ronald E. McNair – Mission Specialist 3, Gregory B. Jarvis – Payload Specialist 1, Sharon Christa McAuliffe – Payload Specialist 2

STS-107 (February 1, 2003)

Rick D. Husband – Commander, William C. McCool – Pilot, Michael P. Anderson – Payload Commander, David M. Brown – Mission Specialist 1, Kalpana Chawla – Mission Specialist 2, Laurel Clark – Mission Specialist 3, Ilan Ramon – Payload Specialist 1

Video credit: NASA

 

January 30, 2024

Starship Mission

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Wikipedia dicit:

Starship is an American two-stage super heavy lift launch vehicle under development by the aerospace company SpaceX. It is currently the largest and most powerful rocket ever flown. Starship is intended to be fully reusable, which means both stages will be recovered after a mission and reused.

The Starship launch vehicle is designed to supplant SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, expand SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation, and launch crews to both low Earth orbit and Mars. The vehicle is fundamental to SpaceX’s ambition of colonizing Mars. SpaceX plans to use Starship vehicles as tankers, refueling other Starships to allow missions to geosynchronous orbit, the Moon, and Mars. A planned lunar lander variant of Starship was contracted by NASA to land astronauts on the Moon as part of the Artemis program by 2025, later delayed to September 2026.

Starship consists of the Super Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft, which are both powered by Raptor engines, which burn liquid methane and liquid oxygen. Both stages are constructed primarily of stainless steel, instead of the carbon composite used in a series of prior designs. The booster is designed to use its engines to slow itself down, before being caught by a pair of mechanical arms attached to the launch tower. The Starship spacecraft is designed to be protected during atmospheric reentry by its thermal protection system, using a ‘belly flop’ maneuver where the spacecraft turns from a horizontal to a vertical position from which it lands using its engines.

SpaceX has stated that a long-term goal for the Starship system is to achieve frequent space launches at low cost. Development follows an iterative and incremental approach involving test flights of prototype vehicles which are often destructive. The first flight test of the full Starship system took place on 20 April 2023, lifting-off with three engines out and ending four minutes after launch due to a loss of control, resulting in the destruction of the launch vehicle. The second flight test of the vehicle took place on 18 November 2023, achieving stage separation with the Super Heavy booster exploding roughly 30 seconds later following multiple engine failures during its boostback burn. The upper stage was lost nearly eight minutes after launch prior to reaching orbit.

Video credit: SpaceX

 

January 29, 2024

14-Year Time-Lapse of the Gamma-Ray Sky

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NASA dicit:

The entire gamma-ray sky is unwrapped into a rectangular map, with the center of our Milky Way galaxy located in the middle, in this 14-year time-lapse of the gamma-ray sky. A moving source, our Sun, can be seen following a curving path through the sky, a reflection of Earth’s annual orbital motion. Watch for strong flares that occasionally brighten the Sun.

The central plane of our galaxy is on full display, glowing in gamma rays produced when accelerated particles (cosmic rays) interact with interstellar gas and starlight. Pulsars and supernova remnants, all bright gamma-ray sources for Fermi, also fleck the Milky Way band. Above and below the bright central plane, where our view of the broader cosmos becomes clearer, splotches of color brighten and fade. These sources are jets of particles moving at nearly the speed of light driven by supermassive black holes in distant galaxies. The jets happen to point almost directly toward Earth, which enhances their brightness and variability. Over a few days, these galaxies can erupt to become some of the brighest objects in the gamma-ray sky and then fade to obscurity.

In these maps, brighter colors indicate greater numbers of gamma rays detected by Fermi’s Large Area Telescope from Aug. 10, 2008, to Aug. 2, 2022.

Video credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center