OrbitalHub

NASA JPL dixit:

“Starting next year, scientists will get their first look deep below the surface of Mars. That’s when NASA will send the first robotic lander dedicated to exploring the planet’s subsurface. InSight, which stands for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, will study marsquakes to learn about the Martian crust, mantle and core.

When rocks crack or shift, they give off seismic waves that bounce throughout a planet. These waves, better known as quakes, travel at different speeds depending on the geologic material they travel through. Seismometers, like InSight’s SEIS instrument, measure the size, frequency and speed of these quakes, offering scientists a snapshot of the material they pass through.

Mars’ geologic record includes lighter rocks and minerals — which rose from the planet’s interior to form the Martian crust — and heavier rocks and minerals that sank to form the Martian mantle and core. By learning about the layering of these materials, scientists can explain why some rocky planets turn into an “Earth” rather than a “Mars” or “Venus” — a factor that is essential to understanding where life can appear in the universe.

Each time a quake happens on Mars, it will give InSight a “snapshot” of the planet’s interior. The InSight team estimates the spacecraft will see between a couple dozen to several hundred quakes over the course of the mission. Small meteorites, which pass through the thin Martian atmosphere on a regular basis, will also serve as seismic “snapshots.” One challenge will be getting a complete look at Mars using only one location. Most seismology on Earth takes measurements from multiple stations. InSight will have the planet’s only seismometer, requiring scientists to parse the data in creative ways.

InSight will measure more than seismology. The Doppler shift from a radio signal on the lander can reveal whether the planet’s core is still molten; a self-burrowing probe is designed to measure heat from the interior. Wind, pressure and temperature sensors will allow scientists to subtract vibrational “noise” caused by weather. Combining all this data will give us the most complete picture of Mars yet.”

Video credit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

NASA dixit:

“SpaceX CRS-14 begins with an on-time liftoff of the company’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Launch occurred at 4:30 p.m. EDT. The Dragon is carrying equipment, science and supplies to the International Space Station on SpaceX’s 14th commercial cargo resupply mission.”

Video credit: NASA/SpaceX

NASA Goddard dixit:

“Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos. Both are small, airless bodies with irregular shapes. Because they lack protective atmospheres and magnetospheres, Phobos and Deimos are directly exposed to the solar wind for part of their orbits. Now, a study from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center suggests that the solar wind creates a complex electrical environment around Phobos, giving its night side and shadowed craters a static electric charge. This could impact plans for future robotic and human explorers to study the moons of Mars.”

Video credit: NASA Goddard

NASA Goddard dixit:

“Scheduled to launch in the mid-2020s, the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) will function as Hubble’s wide-eyed cousin. While just as sensitive as Hubble’s cameras, WFIRST’s 300-megapixel Wide Field Instrument will image a sky area 100 times larger. This means a single WFIRST image will hold the equivalent detail of 100 pictures from Hubble.

The mission’s wide field of view will allow it to generate a never-before-seen big picture of the universe, which will help astronomers explore some of the greatest mysteries of the cosmos, like why the expansion of the universe seems to be accelerating. Some scientists attribute the speed-up to dark energy, an unexplained pressure that makes up 68 percent of the total content of the cosmos.

The Wide Field Instrument will also allow WFIRST to measure the matter in hundreds of millions of distant galaxies through a phenomenon dictated by Einstein’s relativity theory. Massive objects like galaxies curve space-time in a way that bends light passing near them, creating a distorted, magnified view of far-off galaxies behind them. WFIRST will paint a broad picture of how matter is structured throughout the universe, allowing scientists to put the governing physics of its assembly to the ultimate test.

WFIRST can use this same light-bending phenomenon to study planets beyond our solar system, known as exoplanets. In a process called microlensing, a foreground star in our galaxy acts as the lens. When its motion randomly aligns with a distant background star, the lens magnifies, brightens and distorts the background star. WFIRST’s microlensing survey will monitor 100 million stars for hundreds of days and is expected to find about 2,500 planets, well targeted at rocky planets in and beyond the region where liquid water may exist.

These results will make WFIRST an ideal companion to missions like NASA’s Kepler and the upcoming Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which are designed to study larger planets orbiting closer to their host stars. Together, discoveries from these three missions will help complete the census of planets beyond our solar system. The combined data will also overlap in a critical area known as the habitable zone, the orbiting distance from a host star that would permit a planet’s surface to harbor liquid water — and potentially life.

By pioneering an array of innovative technologies, WFIRST will serve as a multipurpose mission, formulating a big picture of the universe and helping us answer some of the most profound questions in astrophysics, such as how the universe evolved into what we see today, its ultimate fate and whether we are alone. “

Video credit: NASA Goddard

Copenhagen Suborbitals dixit:

“The development of the space capsule which will carry our astronaut up to and above the karman line and into space is progressing.

The space capsule which will be lifted by the Spica rocket to an altitude of over one hundred kilometers, or sixty two miles, will contain all systems necessary to enable it to not only bring the astronaut into space, but also bring him, or her, safely back to earth.”

Video credit: Copenhagen Suborbitals

NASA dixit:

“The Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft docked to Poisk module of the International Space Station on March 23, 2018, at 3:40 p.m. EDT while both spacecraft were flying over Serbia.

Following their two-day trip, NASA astronauts Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold and cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev of Roscosmos docked to the International Space Station. Their arrival restores the station’s crew complement to six as they wait to join Scott Tingle of NASA, Expedition 55 Commander Anton Shkaplerov of Roscosmos and Norishige Kanai of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).”

Video credit: Roscosmos