OrbitalHub

ESA dixit:

“These are the last images taken by Rosetta’s high resolution OSIRIS camera during the mission’s final hours at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. As it moved closer towards the surface it scanned across an ancient pit and sent back images showing what would become its final resting place.”

Credits Video: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA – CC BY-SA 4.0/D. C. Jimeno and M. P. Ayucar

ESA dixit:

“The launch lasts less than ten minutes whereby the Soyuz spacecraft is propelled 1640 km and gains 210 km altitude. Every second for nine minutes, the spacecraft accelerates 50 km/h on average as the rocket’s boosters burn their fuel and are discarded.

The astronauts, from left to right, are NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor, Roscosmos commander Sergei Prokopyev, and ESA astronaut and flight engineer Alexander Gerst launched in the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station on 6 June 2018.

Hunched in their Sokol flight suits that offer protection in case of fire or depressurisation, the trio stay in the crew capsule of the Soyuz – the only module that is also designed to survive a return to Earth. The bags above their heads contain supplies for the International Space Station as every bit of space is used.

During a Soyuz launch astronauts typically experience forces of up to 4g – having to work while being pressed into their seats with a force that is four times more than the gravity felt on Earth. The Soyuz commander uses a stick to press buttons as they are too far away from the control panel.

The fluffy toys above the astronauts’ heads are mascots and good luck charms but also serve as a simple but effective test to see when the spacecraft is in orbit: when they start to float the spacecraft is weightless and orbiting Earth. Above Sergei is the mascot for the 2018 FIFA soccer World Cup held in Russia. Alexander took German children television icon “Die Maus” with him.

The launch went as planned as the 50-m tall Soyuz rocket propelled the astronauts to their cruising speed of around 28 800 km/h. For this launch the astronauts took 34 orbits of Earth over two days to arrive at their destination spending their time in the cramped orbital module of the Soyuz that is no larger than a car. With limited communications and living space the astronauts had time to adapt to weightlessness and reflect on their mission ahead. They aligned their spacecraft with the International Space Station and approached the orbital outpost for docking on 8 June 2018.

Alexander is a returning visitor to the International Space Station, the first of ESA’s 2009 class of astronauts to be sent into space for a second time. During the second part of his mission Alexander will take over as commander of the International Space Station, only the second time an ESA astronaut will take on this role so far.”

Credits Video: ESA/NASA/Roscosmos

NASA dixit:

“On June 11, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope celebrated a decade of using gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light in the cosmos, to study black holes, neutron stars, and other extreme cosmic objects and events. Fermi’s main instrument, the Large Area Telescope (LAT), has observed more than 5,000 individual gamma-ray sources.

In 1949, Enrico Fermi — an Italian-American pioneer in high-energy physics and Nobel laureate for whom the mission was named — suggested that cosmic rays, particles traveling at nearly the speed of light, could be propelled by supernova shock waves. In 2013, Fermi’s LAT used gamma rays to prove these stellar remnants are at least one source of the speedy particles. Fermi’s all-sky map, produced by the LAT, has revealed two massive structures extending above and below the plane of the Milky Way. These two “bubbles” span 50,000 light-years and were probably produced by the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy only a few million years ago.

The Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM), Fermi’s secondary instrument, can see the entire sky at any instant, except the portion blocked by Earth. The satellite has observed over 2,300 gamma-ray bursts, the most luminous events in the universe. Gamma-ray bursts occur when massive stars collapse or neutron stars or black holes merge and drive jets of particles at nearly the speed of light. In those jets, matter travels at different speeds and collides, emitting gamma rays.

On August 17, 2017, Fermi detected a gamma-ray burst from a powerful explosion in the constellation Hydra. At almost the same time, the National Science Foundation’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory detected ripples in space-time from the same event, the merger of two neutron stars. This was the first time light and gravitational waves were detected from the same source. Scientists also used another gamma-ray burst detected by Fermi to confirm Einstein’s theory that space-time is smooth and continuous. “

Credits Music: “Unseen Husband” from Killer Tracks

Credits Video: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

ESA dixit:

“As part of ESA’s Expose-R2 project, 46 species of bacteria, fungi and arthropods were delivered by a Progress supply ship to the International Space Station in July 2014. Spacewalking cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev attached the package to the outside of the Zvezda module on 18 August 2014, where it stayed until it was retrieved 18 months later.

This ‘Expose-R2’ is a miniature photochemistry laboratory that exposes samples to the harsh environment of space. Subjected to the full blast of the Sun’s energy as well as vacuum, radiation and temperature swings, they are helping researchers investigating how chemicals and microbiological life react to unprotected spaceflight – on a comet, for example. Previous Expose experiments have already shown that ‘water bears’ and a species of lichen can survive a trip into space.

Expose-R2 was returned inside the International Space Station Station by Yuri Malenchenko and Sergei Volkov during a spacewalk on 3 February 2016 and stored ahead of return to Earth. The samples were held in sealed compartments and covered to block out all light. The vacuum of space is sucking out the water, oxygen and other gases in the samples. Their temperature can drop to –12°C as the Station passes through Earth’s shadow, rising to 40°C at other times, and undergoing a similar process to the freeze-drying used to preserve foods.

Earth is protected from the Sun’s full radiation by our atmosphere filtering out the hard-hitting short wavelengths that are damaging to life. It is difficult to recreate on the ground the full spectrum of the Sun’s light so these experiments in space are the only way to test how biological and material samples behave in conditions beyond Earth.

ESA has a long history of testing organisms and organic chemicals in the harsh environment of space. Previous experiments revealed that lichens and water bears can survive spaceflight unprotected, hinting at the possibility of species colonizing planets via meteoroids. “

Credits Video: ESA

Wikipedia dixit:

“A Mars sample return mission (MSR) would be a spaceflight mission to collect rock and dust samples from Mars and to return them to Earth. Sample return would be a very powerful type of exploration, because analysis is freed from the time, budget, and space constraints of spacecraft sensors.

Since it is currently unknown whether life forms exist on Mars, the mission could potentially transfer viable organisms resulting in back contamination—the introduction of extraterrestrial organisms into Earth’s biosphere. The scientific consensus is that the potential for large-scale effects, either through pathogenesis or ecological disruption, is extremely small. Nevertheless, returned samples from Mars will be treated as potentially biohazardous until scientists can determine that the returned samples are safe. The goal is to reduce the probability of release of a Mars particle to less than one in a million. In addition, the proposed NASA Mars Sample Return mission will not be approved by NASA until the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process has been completed. The NEPA process would require a public review of all potential impacts that could result from MSR, including worst case back contamination scenarios. It is likely that a formal Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) would have to be prepared. Furthermore, under the terms of Article VII of the Outer Space Treaty and probably various other legal frameworks, were a release of organisms to occur, the releasing nation or nations would be liable for any resultant damages.

Part of the sample return mission would be to prevent contact between the Martian environment and the exterior of the sample container. In order to eliminate the risk of parachute failure, the current plan is to use the thermal protection system to cushion the capsule upon impact (at terminal velocity). The sample container will be designed to withstand the force of the impact. To receive the returned samples, NASA proposed a specially designed Biosafety Level 4 containment facility, the Mars Sample Return Receiving facility (MSRRF). Not knowing what properties (e.g., size) any Martian organisms might exhibit is a complication in design of such a facility.”

Credits Video: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

NASA dixit:

“Two decades of planetary change are available to explore in NASA’s Worldview. Detailed views of volcanoes fuming, hurricanes flooding, dams being built, and wildfires sweeping across landscapes are just some of the data accessible. Worldview users can even create data animations at the touch of a button and easily share imagery, giving NASA’s worldwide audience the ability to interactively view their world their way and interactively explore almost 20 years of planetary change.”

Credits Music: Natural Time Cycles by Laurent Dury

Credits Video: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Lauren Ward