Soyuz Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, ISS Commander Doug Wheelock, and Flight Engineer Shannon Walker landed in Kazakhstan on November 26, 2010. The Expedition 25 members completed almost six months in space.
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Expedition 25 has ended its stay at the International Space Station as Doug Wheelock, Shannon Walker, and Soyuz Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin undocked from the station in the Soyuz TMA-19, on November 25, 2010.
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On November 25, 2010, Commander Doug Wheelock and Flight Engineers Shannon Walker and Fyodor Yurchikhin left the International Space Station onboard the Soyuz TMA-19. Soyuz TMA-19 arrived at the station on June 17, 2010.
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| Credits: FFI |
AIS, which stands for Automatic Identification System, provides navigation aid and works as an anti-collision system for vessels at sea. As of December 31, 2004, as required by IMO (the International Maritime Organization), an AIS device must be fitted aboard all passenger ships, all ships engaged on international voyages that have more than 300 gross tonnage, and cargo ships not engaged on international voyages that have more than 500 gross tonnage.
AIS devices aboard the ships broadcast messages containing position reports and short messages with information about the ship and the voyage. These messages are sent on two channels in the maritime VHF to neighboring vessels and to VTS (Vessel Traffic Services) stations on the shore. These messages can also be picked up by a VHF receiver in low Earth orbit (LEO). This is how the idea of space monitoring of AIS signals was born.
Norway, a nation having long shore lines and large fishing grounds in its coastal waters, pioneered this new concept. AISsat-1 is a nanosatellite technology demonstration mission in LEO, funded by the NSC (the Norwegian Space Center). The technical implementation is the responsibility of the FFI (Norwegian Defense Research Establishment).
AISsat-1 is a cube-shaped nanosatellite measuring 20 x 20 x 20 cm that weighs six kilograms. AISsat-1 has been built at UTIAS (the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies). The payload on AISsat-1, the AIS sensor, was developed by Kongsberg Seatex AS (KSX) of Trondheim, Norway.
The satellite design is based on the Generic Nanosatellite Bus (GNB) developed at UTIAS. GNB contains all the necessary components for a typical satellite mission: a TT&C and payload data communication system, a 3-axis attitude determination and control system, and a dual-battery, gallium-arsenide triple-junction solar cell based power system. GNB has a large accommodation for scientific payloads in terms of volume, power, computing power, and spacecraft surface area.
AISsat-1 shared a ride to space on a multi-payload mission on the PSLV-C15 launch vehicle on July 12, 2010. PSLV lifted off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota, India. The satellite has been placed into a polar orbit at 98.1 degrees inclination with perigee at 626 km and apogee at 642 km. The orbit has a period of 97.3 minutes.
The ground station that acquires data from AISsat-1 during the 15 daily passes over Norwegian waters is the Svalbard Ground Station, located on the Norwegian Svalbard archipelago, near the town of Longyearbyen. The ground station is storing data for subsequent forwarding to the mission control center located at FFI in southern Norway.
AISsat-1 has entered the Norwegian Top Technological Achievement Competition for 2010. You are invited to cast your vote for AISsat-1, a mission based on Canadian nanosatellite technology. You can submit your vote by the end of this Sunday, November 28, 2010, on this webpage. If you have difficulties understanding Norwegian, this Google Translate link will do the trick for you. Go Canada!
You can find more information about AISsat-1 on the Norwegian Space Centre’s website.
On November 19, 2010, a Minotaur IV launch vehicle lifted off with FASTSAT microsatellite (Fast, Affordable Science and Technology Satellite) from the Alaska Aerospace Corporation\’s Kodiak Launch Complex on Kodiak Island, Alaska. Other satellites shared the ride with FASTSAT: FASTRAC, STPSat-2, FalconSat-5, NanoSail-D. FASTSAT is a demonstrator of NASA\’s ability to provide low-cost opportunities for scientific and technical payloads.
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| Credits: NASA |
ARES (or the Aerial Regional-scale Environment Survey) is an autonomous powered airplane. ARES will bridge the gap between remote sensing and surface exploration on Mars.
This new class of science will allow magnetic surveys with an improved resolution, geologic diversity coverage, and in-situ atmospheric science.
ARES method of deployment is unique because the robotic aircraft has to travel to Mars folded inside a protective shell. After the atmospheric entry and the parachute deployment, the heat shield that protects the aircraft during entry is released. Once the heat shield is out of the way, the folded aircraft leaves the protective shell. The unfolded tail will stabilize the tumbling aircraft. Finally, the wings will unfold and the aircraft will pull up from the dive.
It is needless to say that reliability is essential. All the mechanical systems of the aircraft that are involved in this maneuver must perform without any flaws, and that has to happen after spending six to eight months in vacuum at (more than) freezing temperatures. It is hard to imagine that ARES would be able to fly with a folded wing.
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| Credits: NASA |
The ARES design is the result of five years of extensive analysis and testing. Testing has included wind tunnel tests, ejection tests, and flight tests. In order to simulate the Mars environment, the flight tests had to be performed at certain Mach and Reynolds numbers. A 50% scale prototype was released from a high-altitude research balloon. The robust design that resulted will handle the uncertainties in the Mars environment.
ARES could be selected as the next Mars Scout Mission. For more details about ARES you can visit NASA’s website. ARES Principal Investigator, Dr. Joel S. Levine, presented ARES at a TEDxNASA event. If you want to build your own paper-made scale model of the ARES Mars Airplane, you can find the model here.
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