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10-11-17

Hurricane Nate

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NASA dixit:

“Nate made landfall over the weekend along the northern Gulf Coast as a Category 1 hurricane with sustained winds reported at 85 mph (~140 kph) by the National Hurricane Center (NHC) first at 7:00pm CDT on Saturday October 7th in Louisiana near the mouth of the Mississippi River then again several hours later at 12:30 a.m. CDT on Sunday October 8th near Biloxi, Mississippi before moving quickly moving northward through northern Alabama and central Tennessee.

NASA’s GPM satellite helped track Nate’s progress through the Gulf of Mexico and also captured Nate’s landfall on the north central Gulf Coast. The following animation shows instantaneous rain rate estimates from NASA’s Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM or IMERG product over North America and the surrounding waters beginning on Thursday October 5th when Nate first became a tropical storm near the northeast coast of Nicaragua in the western Caribbean until its eventual landfall on the northern Gulf Coast on Sunday October 8th.

IMERG estimates precipitation from a combination of space-borne passive microwave sensors, including the GMI microwave sensor on board the GPM core satellite, and geostationary IR (infrared) data. The animation shows Nate moving rapidly northward through the Gulf of Mexico on the 7th. Nate’s rapid movement from 20 to as much as 26 mph to strengthen despite being over very warm waters and in a relatively low wind shear environment. Nate reached a peak intensity of 90 mph sustained winds, which it maintained while passing over the Gulf of Mexico, but it did not intensify any further before making landfall. The animation also shows two 3-D flyby’s of Nate captured by the GPM core satellite as it overflew the storm just before landfall at 22:58 UTC (5:58 CDT) on Saturday October 7th and again at 08:42 UTC (3:42 CDT) on Sunday October 8th soon after Nate’s second landfall.

The 3-D precipitation tops (shown in blue) are from GPM’s DPR as are the vertical cross sections of precipitation intensity. The first overpass shows that Nate is a very asymmetric storm with most of the rainbands associated with Nate located north and east of the center. With it’s rapid movement, Nate was unable to fully develop and lacks the classic ring of intense thunderstorms associated a fully developed eyewall. Although overall much the same, the second overpass shows an area of deep, intense convection producing heavy rains over southwest Alabama.

Because of its rapid movement, Nate did not produce the catastrophic flooding that Harvey did. However, Nate is being blamed for 2 storm-related fatalities in the U.S. and at least 38 across Central America, most in Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA.”

Video credit: NASA Goddard

 

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07-19-17

BepiColombo

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ESA dixit:

“BepiColombo is Europe’s first mission to Mercury. It will set off in 2018 on a journey to the smallest and least explored terrestrial planet in our Solar System. When it arrives at Mercury in late 2025, it will endure temperatures in excess of 350 °C and gather data during its 1 year nominal mission, with a possible 1-year extension. The mission comprises two spacecraft: the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO). BepiColombo is a joint mission between ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), executed under ESA leadership.”

Video credit: ESA

 

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04-14-17

H3 Launch Vehicle

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JAXA dixit:

“The H3 Launch Vehicle is a large-size next-generation launch vehicle whose maiden flight is scheduled in Japan Fiscal Year 2020 from the Tanegashima Space Center. H3 is under development to be a successor to the H-IIA Launch Vehicle, the current mainstay launch vehicle, in order to maintain Japan’s autonomous access to space.

Recently, many satellites that are closely related to our lives have been transported to space, thus utilizing space has become part of our daily lives. Under such a progressive society, H3 is aiming to become a launch vehicle that attracts people’s attention not only in Japan but also globally as an easy-to-use space transportation system.

For H3 to succeed, JAXA will modernize the overall launch vehicle based on our experience cultivated through the development and operation of H-IIA. In that sense, we face technological challenges including the development of a new large liquid engine (LE-9) and solid rocket boosters (SRB-3). Technologies developed for H3 will be applied to the Epsilon Launch Vehicle.

JAXA and related companies will make active use of Japanese technologies in various fields to develop the new launch vehicle.”

Video credit: JAXA

 

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12-27-16

HTV-6 Launch and Berthing

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Wikipedia dixit:

“Kounotori 6, also known as HTV-6, is the sixth flight of the H-II Transfer Vehicle, an unmanned cargo spacecraft launched to resupply the International Space Station. It was launched at 13:26:47 UTC on 9 December 2016 aboard H-IIB launch vehicle from Tanegashima Space Center.

Major changes from previous Kounotori include: built-in payloads to demonstrate new technologies: SFINKS and KITE, reduction of primary batteries to 6 from previous 7, reduction of solar cell panels to 48 from previous 49, omission of some of navigation/position lights which were Earth-side when approaching to ISS, strengthened EP (Exposed Pallet) maximum payload to 1.9 t from previous 1.6 t to carry Li-ion batteries.

SFINKS (Solar Cell Film Array Sheet for Next Generation on Kounotori Six) will test thin film solar cells in space. KITE (Kounotori Integrated Tether Experiment) is an experimental electrodynamic tether (EDT). The tether is equipped with a 20 kg end-mass, and will be 700 m long when deployed. A maximum 10 mA current will run through the tether. Kounotori’s ISS rendezvous sensor will be utilized to measure how the end-mass moves during the test. The EDT experiment will be conducted following Kounotori 6’s departure from the ISS, and is to be held for a week. After the experiment, the tether will be separated before the spacecraft proceeds with the de-orbit maneuvers. The main objective of this experiment is the orbital demonstration of both extending an uncoated bare-tether, and driving electric currents through the EDT. These two technologies will contribute to gaining capabilities to remove space debris.

Cargo in the pressurized compartment includes 30 bags filled with potable water (600 liters), food, crew commodities, CDRA Bed (Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly), TPF (Two-Phase Flow) experiment unit, PS-TEPC (Position-Sensitive Tissue Equivalent Proportional Chamber) radiation measurement instrument, ExHAM (Exposed Experiment Handrail Attachment Mechanism), HDTV-EF2 hi-def and 4K camera, new J-SSOD (JEM Small Satellite Orbital Deployer), and CubeSats (AOBA-Velox III, TuPOD which comprises two TubeSats (Tancredo-1 (pt) and OSNSAT), EGG, ITF-2, STARS-C, FREEDOM, WASEDA-SAT3). Cargo by NanoRacks includes TechEdSat-5, CubeRider, RTcMISS, NREP-P DM7, four Lemur-2. Additionally, the Blue SPHERES satellite of the MIT Space Systems Laboratory is being returned to the ISS for continued autonomous systems research. Cargo in the unpressurized compartment consists of six Lithium-ion batteries and their associated adapter plates to replace existing nickel-hydrogen batteries of the ISS. Since each of the new Li-ion battery has a capability equivalent to two of the current Ni-H batteries, the six new batteries will replace twelve old batteries, out of the 48 existing batteries of the ISS.”

Video credit: NASA/ESA/JAXA

 

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08-30-15

HTV -5 Berthing

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NASA dixit:

“The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) “Kounotori†H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-5) arrived at the International Space Station Aug. 24 to deliver almost five tons of supplies and scientific experiments to the Expedition 44 crew. The cargo vehicle was launched atop a Japanese H-IIB rocket Aug. 19 from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan.”

Video credit: NASA

 

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04-2-10

IKAROS

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Credits: JAXA

 

While solar sail projects around the world are starving for funding, in Japan things are different. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is developing a small solar power sail demonstrator, IKAROS (Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation Of the Sun). IKAROS is equipped with a square sail made of polyimide resin and 0.0075 mm thick. Long-term plans of the agency include a medium-sized solar power sail with a diameter of 50 m and ion-propulsion engines that will explore the Trojan asteroids and Jupiter.

 

 

The solar power sail is a slightly different concept than the traditional solar sail. In addition to the solar sail, the solar power sail has a thin film of solar cells deployed on the membrane. The solar cells generate electricity that can be used to power ion-propulsion engines onboard the spacecraft. Fuel-effective mission profiles are made possible by such hybrids.

 

IKAROS will be launched from the Tanegashima Space Center on top of a H-II launch vehicle. It will share the ride with the Venus Climate Orbiter “AKATSUKIâ€.

 

JAXA is committed to leading the research and the development of solar sails:
“JAXA will lead future solar system exploration using solar power sails. Our missions will lead to lower cost in the solar cells market, whose growth is a key factor for global warming prevention. Those low-cost solar cells are also the foundation of future solar power satellite systems.â€

 

Centauri Dreams presents the comments of Osamu Mori, the project leader for the sail mission, on the solar-powered attitude control system of the spacecraft and the deployment method of the sail. You can find more information about IKAROS on JAXA’s web site.

 

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