OrbitalHub

ESA dixit:

“This short movie tells the story of Rosetta’s journey through the Solar System and its exploration of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko so far, through the voices of some of the many people involved in this exciting mission.

ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft was launched in March 2004 and has chased down the comet for 10 years, reaching it on 6 August 2014. It is the first space mission to orbit a comet and to attempt a soft landing. It will also be the first mission to journey with a comet as they swing around the Sun throughout 2015.

In the last 10 years Rosetta has made three flybys of Earth and one of Mars, and passed by and imaged asteroids Steins and Lutetia. In June 2011, Rosetta was placed into deep-space hibernation as it cruised nearly 800 million kilometres from the warmth of the Sun, close to the orbit of Jupiter. This was necessary because not enough energy could be generated by the solar panels to keep all the spacecraft systems operating. On 20 January 2014, Rosetta woke up from hibernation and continued its journey towards the comet.

Rosetta first viewed its target from a distance in 2011. After the wake-up, the first sight of the comet came in March 2014. Since then, Rosetta scientists have been following the comet’s activity, studying it with various instruments on board. As Rosetta drew closer and closer in July, the complex shape of this double-lobed object was revealed.

After Rosetta arrived at the comet in August, it started mapping the surface in greater detail, leading to the selection of a target for the lander, Philae, in September 2014. The site, now named Agilkia after an island on the Nile river, is located on the smaller lobe of the comet.

Rosetta is scheduled to release Philae on 12 November and, seven hours later, the lander is expected to reach the comet’s surface.

Acknowledgements: The images of the comet were taken with the OSIRIS camera (ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA) and with the navigation camera (ESA/Rosetta/NavCam) on Rosetta; the self-portraits were taken with the CIVA instrument on Philae (ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA); the ground-based images of the comet were taken using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile. The images of asteroids Steins and Lutetia were also taken with the OSIRIS camera.”

Credit: ESA

ESA dixit:

“Could astronauts one day be printing rather than building a base on the Moon? In 2013 ESA, working with industrial partners, proved that 3D printing using lunar material was feasible in principle. Since then, work continues to investigate the technique. The shielding against radiation provided by a 3D-printed block of simulated lunar regolith was measured, providing important inputs for next-stage designs… Soon the Agency is due to investigate another lunar 3D printing method, harnessing concentrated sunlight to melt regolith rather than using a binding liquid.

But how might lunar 3D printing one day be used in practice? Foster+Partners, contributing architectural concepts for the original study, put together this outline of a hypothetical mission to 3D-print an entire a lunar base, illustrating the design factors that steered them in their work. The rim of Shackleton Crater at the lunar south pole was chosen for the base location. The Moon’s rotation is such that the Sun only grazes its poles at low angles. The result is a near-constant ‘peak of eternal light’ along the rim of Shackleton Crater, beside regions of permanent shadow. Building in the vicinity of such a site would offer plentiful solar power, and relief from the extremes of heat and cold found across the rest of the Moon.

In reality any lunar base remains firmly on the drawing board, but each small step forward in research makes future lunar colonisation a little more feasible. In November 2014 more than 350 experts came together for a two-day Additive Manufacturing for Space Applications workshop at ESA’s ESTEC technical centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. They discussed the potential of 3D printing – also known as Additive Manufacturing – to transform the way the space industry operates and begin preparing common standards for its use.”

Read more about 3D-printing using Lunar soil…

Credit: ESA/Foster+Partners

NASA dixit:

“The sun emitted a mid-level solar flare, peaking at 3:01 p.m. EDT on Oct. 2, 2014. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun 24-hours a day, captured images of the flare. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however — when intense enough — they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.

This flare is classified as an M7.3 flare. M-class flares are one-tenth as powerful as the most powerful flares, which are designated X-class flares”.

Music: “No Comment Before Sunset” by Lars Leonhard, courtesy of the artist and BineMusic.

Credit: NASA

NASA dixit:

“Filled with more than 3,700 pounds of hardware and critical science experiments, the SpaceX Dragon cargo craft left the International Space Station, headed for a deorbit and a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California. Dragon arrived at the station on Sept. 23 on the fourth resupply mission to the outpost for the U.S. commercial firm. Dragon is the only cargo vehicle servicing the space station that can return cargo and scientific experiments back to Earth intact for researchers to retrieve for post-flight analysis.”

Credit: NASA

SpaceX dixit:

“After four successful missions to the International Space Station, including three official resupply missions for NASA, SpaceX is set to launch its fourth official Commercial Resupply (CRS) mission to the orbiting lab. The SpaceX CRS-4 mission is targeting launch at 06:14 UTC Saturday, September 20 from Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. If all goes as planned, Dragon will arrive at the station on Monday, September 22 for an expected four-week visit. Dragon is scheduled to return to Earth in mid-October for a parachute-assisted splashdown off the coast of southern California. Dragon is the only operational spacecraft capable of returning a significant amount of supplies back to Earth, including experiments.”

Credit: SpaceX / NASA

NASA dixit:

“An international team of astronomers has developed a 3D model of a giant cloud ejected by the massive binary system Eta Carinae during its 19th century outburst. Eta Carinae lies about 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation of Carina and is one of the most massive binary systems astronomers can study in detail. The smaller star is about 30 times the mass of the sun and may be as much as a million times more luminous. The primary star contains about 90 solar masses and emits 5 million times the sun’s energy output. Both stars are fated to end their lives in spectacular supernova explosions.

Between 1838 and 1845, Eta Carinae underwent a period of unusual variability during which it briefly outshone Canopus, normally the second-brightest star. As a part of this event, which astronomers call the Great Eruption, a gaseous shell containing at least 10 and perhaps as much as 40 times the sun’s mass was shot into space. This material forms a twin-lobed dust-filled cloud known as the Homunculus Nebula, which is now about a light-year long and continues to expand at more than 1.3 million mph (2.1 million km/h).

Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope and its X-Shooter spectrograph, the team imaged near-infrared, visible and ultraviolet wavelengths along 92 separate swaths across the nebula, making the most complete spectral map to date. The researchers have used the spatial and velocity information provided by this data to create the first high-resolution 3D model of the Homunculus Nebula.

The shape model was developed using only a single emission line of near-infrared light emitted by molecular hydrogen gas. The characteristic 2.12-micron light shifts in wavelength slightly depending on the speed and direction of the expanding gas, allowing the team to probe even dust-obscured portions of the Homunculus that face away from Earth.”

Credit: NASA Goddard