As humans plan expeditions to places such as the Moon and Mars, biomining could offer a way to obtain needed materials on other planetary bodies rather than bringing them from Earth. However, microbes and rocks interact differently outside of Earth’s gravity, potentially affecting output from extraterrestrial biomining. A new investigation on the International Space Station is studying how microbes grow on and alter planetary rocks in microgravity and simulated Martian gravity.
Adrian guides you through his project of a Reaction Control System for our crewed Spica space capsule. This system will enable our spacecraft to orient and stabilize itself in the vacuum of space.
Copenhagen Suborbitals is the world’s only manned, amateur space program, 100% crowdfunded and nonprofit. In the future, one of us will fly to space on a home built rocket.
The Lockheed Martin X-59 QueSST (“Quiet Supersonic Transport”) is an American experimental supersonic aircraft being developed for NASA’s Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator program. Preliminary design started in February 2016, with the X-59 scheduled for delivery in late 2021 for flight tests from 2022. It is expected to cruise at Mach 1.42 (1,510 km/h) and 55,000 ft (16,800 m), creating a low 75 Perceived Level decibel (PLdB) thump to evaluate supersonic transport acceptability.
Cepheus is a constellation in the northern sky, named after Cepheus, a king of Aethiopia in Greek mythology. Cepheus was one of the 48 constellations listed by the second century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 constellations in the modern times.
The constellation’s brightest star is Alpha Cephei, with an apparent magnitude of 2.5. Delta Cephei is the prototype of an important class of star known as a Cepheid variable. RW Cephei, an orange hypergiant, together with the red supergiants Mu Cephei, MY Cephei, VV Cephei, and V354 Cephei are among the largest stars known. In addition, Cepheus also has the hyperluminous quasar S5 0014+81, which hosts an ultramassive black hole in its core, reported at 40 billion solar masses, about 10,000 times more massive than the central black hole of the Milky Way, making this among the most massive black holes currently known.
In February 2016, Lockheed Martin was awarded a preliminary design contract, aiming to fly in the 2020 timeframe. A 9% scale model was to be wind tunnel tested from Mach 0.3 to Mach 1.6 between February and April 2017. The Preliminary design review was to be completed by June 2017. While NASA received three inquiries for its August 2017 request for proposals, Lockheed was the sole bidder.
On April 2, 2018, NASA awarded Lockheed Martin a $247.5 million contract to design, build and deliver in late 2021 the Low-Boom X-plane. On June 26, 2018, the US Air Force informed NASA it had assigned the X-59 QueSST designation to the demonstrator. By October, NASA Langley had completed three weeks of wind tunnel testing of an 8%-scale model, with high AOAs up to 50° and 88° at very low speed, up from 13° in previous tunnel campaigns. Testing was for static stability and control, dynamic forced oscillations, and laser flow visualization, expanding on previous experimental and computational predictions.
From November 5, 2018 NASA was to begin tests over two weeks to gather feedback: up to eight thumps a day at different locations will be monitored by 20 noise sensors and described by 400 residents, receiving a $25 per week compensation. To simulate the thump, a F/A-18 is diving from 50,000 ft to briefly go supersonic for reduced shock waves over Galveston, Texas, an island, and a stronger boom over water. By then, Lockheed Martin had began milling the first part in Palmdale, California.
In May 2019, the initial major structural parts should be loaded in the tooling assembly, and the external vision system (XVS) should be flight tested on a King Air around June at NASA Langley. This will be followed by high speed wind tunnel tests to verify inlet performance predictions with a 9.5%-scale model at NASA Glenn Research Center. The critical design review is planned for September 2019 with 80-90% of the drawings released to engineering. The first flight is planned for 2021, with schedule reserve until early 2022.
“NASA has successfully tested an advanced air-to-air photographic technology in flight, capturing the first-ever images of the interaction of shockwaves from two supersonic aircraft in flight. The images, originally monochromatic and shown here as composite colored images, were captured during the fourth phase of Air-to-Air Background Oriented Schlieren flights, or AirBOS, which took place at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. The flight series saw successful testing of an upgraded imaging system capable of capturing high-quality images of shockwaves, rapid pressure changes which are produced when an aircraft flies faster than the speed of sound, or supersonic. Shockwaves produced by aircraft merge together as they travel through the atmosphere and are responsible for what is heard on the ground as a sonic boom.
The system will be used to capture data crucial to confirming the design of the agency’s X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology X-plane, or X-59 QueSST, which will fly supersonic, but will produce shockwaves in such a way that, instead of a loud sonic boom, only a quiet rumble may be heard. The ability to fly supersonic without a sonic boom may one day result in lifting current restrictions on supersonic flight over land.”
Video Credit: NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center
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