“The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft launched on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket on July 18 from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida, carrying science research, crew supplies and hardware in support of the Expedition 48 and 49 crew aboard the International Space Station. About 10 minutes after launch, Dragon reached its preliminary orbit, deployed its solar arrays and began a carefully choreographed series of thruster firings to begin its two-day journey to the station. […]
On July 20, two days after launching from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida , the SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station, carrying science research, crew supplies and hardware in support of the station’s Expedition 48 and 49 crews. NASA astronaut Jeff Williams used the station’s robotic arm, which he controlled from the station’s cupola, to capture the Dragon. Ground controllers in Houston then sent commands instructing the robot arm to install Dragon on the Earth-facing side of the station’s Harmony module. During the next five weeks, crew members will unload the spacecraft and reload it with cargo to return to Earth. About five-and-a-half hours after it departs the station Aug. 29, it will splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California.”
“Two days after its launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the unpiloted Russian ISS Progress 64 cargo ship automatically docked to the Pirs Docking Compartment on the Russian segment of the International Space Station July 18. The new Progress is delivering three tons of food, fuel and supplies to the six crewmembers comprising the Expedition 48 crew. The Progress will remain attached to the station until late January, when it will undock and commanded to deorbit so it can burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere.”
“NASA’s Juno spacecraft has crossed the boundary of Jupiter’s immense magnetic field. Juno’s Waves instrument recorded the encounter with the bow shock over the course of about two hours on June 24, 2016. “Bow shock” is where the supersonic solar wind is heated and slowed by Jupiter’s magnetosphere. It is analogous to a sonic boom on Earth. The next day, June 25, 2016, the Waves instrument witnessed the crossing of the magnetopause. “Trapped continuum radiation” refers to waves trapped in a low-density cavity in Jupiter’s magnetosphere. […]
After nearly five years traveling through space to its destination, NASA’s Juno spacecraft will arrive in orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016. This video shows a peek of what the spacecraft saw as it closed in on its destination. Jupiter is visible along with the four Galilean moons: Callisto, Ganymede, Europa and Io. The images were taken prior to June 30, 2016, when the JunoCam camera and science instruments were turned off to prepare the spacecraft for the daring orbit insertion maneuver.”
“Expedition 48-49 Soyuz Commander Anatoly Ivanishin of Roscosmos and Flight Engineers Kate Rubins of NASA and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launched on the Russian Soyuz MS-01 spacecraft July 7 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to begin a two-day journey to the International Space Station and the start of a four-month mission.”
“The Soyuz-MS (Союз МС) is the latest (and probably last) revision of the venerable Soyuz spacecraft. It is an evolution of the Soyuz TMA-M spacecraft, with modernization mostly concentrated on the communications and navigation subsystems. It is used by the Russian Federal Space Agency for human spaceflight. Soyuz-MS has minimal external changes with respect to the Soyuz TMA-M, mostly limited to antennas and sensors, as well as the thrusters placement.
The Soyuz MS received the following upgrades with respect to the Soyuz TMA-M:
The power supply system SEP (Russian: CЭП, Система Электропитания) still uses fixed solar panels. But photovoltaic cells efficiency was improved to 14% (from 12%) and collective area was increased 1.1 m2 (12 sq ft).
A fifth 906V battery with 155 Ampere-hour capacity was added to support the increased energy consumption from the improved electronics.
Additional micro meteoroid protection was added to the BO orbital module.
New computer (TsVM-101), weighs one-eighth that of its predecessor (8.3 kg vs. 70 kg) while also being much smaller than the previous Argon-16 computer.
While as of July 2016 it is not know if the propulsion system is still called KTDU-80, it has been significantly modified. While previously the system had 16 high thrust DPO-B and six low thrust DPO-M in one propellant supply circuit and six other low thrust DPO-M on a different circuit, now all 28 thrusters are high thrust DPO-B, arranged in 14 pairs. Each propellant supply circuit handles 14 DPO-B, with each element of each thruster pair being fed by a different circuit. This provides full fault tolerance for thruster or propellant circuit failure. The new arrangement adds fault tolerance for docking and undocking with one failed thruster or de-orbit with two failed thrusters. Also, the number of DPO-B in the aft section has been doubled to eight, improving the de-orbit fault tolerance.
The propellant consumption signal, EFIR was redesigned to avoid false positives on propellant consumption.
The avionics unit, BA DPO (Russian: БА ДПО, Блоки Автоматики лодсистема Двигателей Причаливания и Ориентации), had to be modified for all this changes in the RCS.
Instead of relying on ground stations for orbital determination and correction, the now included Satellite Navigation System ASN-K (Russian: (АСН-К, Аппаратуру Спутниковой Навигации) relying on GLONASS and GPS signals for navigation. It uses four fixed antennas to achieve a positioning accuracy of 5 m (16 ft), with the objective to reduce that number to as little as 3 cm (1.2 in) and an attitude accuracy of 0.5°.
The old radio command system, the BRTS (Russian: БРТС Бортовая Радио-текхническая Система) that relied on the Kvant-V was replaced with an integrated communications and telemetry system, EKTS (Russian: ЕКТС, Единой Kомандно-Телеметрической Системы). It can use not only the VHF and UHF ground stations but thanks to the addition of an S band antenna, the Lutch Constellation as well, to have theoretical 85% of real time connection to ground control. But since the S band antenna is fixed and Soyuz spacecraft cruises in a slow longitudinal rotation, in practice this capability might be limited due to lack of antenna pointing capability. It may also be able to use the American TDRS and the European EDRS in the future.
The old information and telemetry system MBITS (Russian: МБИТС, МалогаБаритная Информационно-Телеметрическая Система) has been fully integrated into the EKTS.
The old VHF radio communication system (Russian: Система Телефонно-Телеграфной Связи) Rassvet-M (Russian: Рассвет-М) was replaced withe the Rassvet-3BM (Russian: Рассвет-3БМ) system that has been integrated into the EKTS.
The old 38G6 antennas are replaced with four omnidirectional antenna (two on the solar panels tips and two in the PAO) plus one S band phased array, also in the PAO.
The descent module communication and telemetry system also received upgrades that will lead to eventually having a voice channel in addition to the present telemetry.
The EKTS system also includes a COSPAS-SARSAT transponder to transmit it’s coordinates to ground control in real time during parachute fall and landing.
All the changes introduced with the EKTS enable the Soyuz to use the same ground segment terminals as the Russian Segment of the ISS.
The new Kurs-NA (Russian: Курс-НА) automatic docking system is now made indigenously in Russia. Developed by Sergei Medvedev of AO NII TP, it is claimed to be 25 kg (55 lb) lighter, use 30% less voluminous and 25% less power. An AO-753A phased array antenna replaced the 2AO-VKA antenna and three AKR-VKA antennas, while the two 2ASF-M-VKA antenna were moved to fixed positions further back.
The docking system received a backup electric driving mechanism.
Instead of the analog TV system Klest-M (Russian: Клест-М), the spacecraft uses a digital TV system based on MPEG-2, which makes it possible to maintain communications between the spacecraft and the station via a space-to-space RF link and reduces interferences.
A new Digital Backup Loop Control Unit, BURK (Russian: БУРК, Блок Управления Резервным Контуром), developed by RSC Energia, replaced the old avionics, the Motion and Orientation Control Unit, BUPO (Russian: БУПО, Блока Управления Причаливанием и Ориентацией) and the signal conversion unit BPS (Russian: БПС, блока преобразования сигналов).
The upgrade also replaces the old Rate Sensor Unit BDUS-3M (Russian: БДУС-3М, блок датчиков угловых скоростей) with the new BDUS-3A (Russian: БДУС-3А).
The the old halogen headlights, SMI-4 (Russian: СМИ-4), have been replaced with the LED powered headlight SFOK (Russian: СФОК).
A new black box SZI-M (Russian: СЗИ-М, Система запоминания информации) that records voice and data during the mission was added under the pilot’s seat in the descent module. The dual unit module was developed at AO RKS corporation in Moscow with the use of indigenous electronics. It has a capacity of 4GB and a recording speed of 256Kilobyte/s. It is designed to tolerate falls of 150 m/s (490 ft/s) and is rated for 100,000 overwrite cycles and 10 reuses. It can also tolerate 700 °C (1,292 °F) for 30 minutes.”
“NASA GSFC solar scientist Holly Gilbert explains a computer model of the sun’s magnetic field.
Grasping what drives that magnetic system is crucial for understanding the nature of space throughout the solar system: The sun’s invisible magnetic field is responsible for everything from the solar explosions that cause space weather on Earth – such as auroras – to the interplanetary magnetic field and radiation through which our spacecraft journeying around the solar system must travel.
We can observe the shape of the magnetic fields above the sun’s surface because they guide the motion of that plasma – the loops and towers of material in the corona glow brightly in EUV images. Additionally, the footpoints on the sun’s surface, or photosphere, of these magnetic loops can be more precisely measured using an instrument called a magnetograph, which measures the strength and direction of magnetic fields.
Scientists also turn to models. They combine their observations – measurements of the magnetic field strength and direction on the solar surface – with an understanding of how solar material moves and magnetism to fill in the gaps. Simulations such as the Potential Field Source Surface, or PFSS, model – shown in the accompanying video – can help illustrate exactly how magnetic fields undulate around the sun. Models like PFSS can give us a good idea of what the solar magnetic field looks like in the sun’s corona and even on the sun’s far side.”
“Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is a multipurpose spacecraft designed to conduct reconnaissance and exploration of Mars from orbit. The US$720 million spacecraft was built by Lockheed Martin under the supervision of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The mission is managed by the California Institute of Technology, at the JPL, in La Cañada Flintridge, California, for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. It was launched August 12, 2005, and attained Martian orbit on March 10, 2006. In November 2006, after five months of aerobraking, it entered its final science orbit and began its primary science phase. As MRO entered orbit, it joined five other active spacecraft that were either in orbit or on the planet’s surface: Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Express, 2001 Mars Odyssey, and the two Mars Exploration Rovers (Spirit and Opportunity); at the time, this set a record for the most operational spacecraft in the immediate vicinity of Mars. Mars Global Surveyor and the Spirit rover have since ceased to function; the remainder remain operational as of March 2016.
MRO contains a host of scientific instruments such as cameras, spectrometers, and radar, which are used to analyze the landforms, stratigraphy, minerals, and ice of Mars. It paves the way for future spacecraft by monitoring Mars’ daily weather and surface conditions, studying potential landing sites, and hosting a new telecommunications system. MRO’s telecommunications system will transfer more data back to Earth than all previous interplanetary missions combined, and MRO will serve as a highly capable relay satellite for future missions.[…]
On September 29, 2006 (sol 402), MRO took its first high resolution image from its science orbit. This image is said to resolve items as small as 90 cm (3 feet) in diameter. On October 6, NASA released detailed pictures from the MRO of Victoria crater along with the Opportunity rover on the rim above it. In November, problems began to surface in the operation of two MRO spacecraft instruments. A stepping mechanism in the Mars Climate Sounder (MCS) skipped on multiple occasions resulting in a field of view that is slightly out of position. By December normal operations of the instrument was suspended, although a mitigation strategy allows the instrument to continue making most of its intended observations. Also, an increase in noise and resulting bad pixels has been observed in several CCDs of the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE). Operation of this camera with a longer warm-up time has alleviated the issue. However, the cause is still unknown and may return.
HiRISE continues to return images that have enabled discoveries regarding the geology of Mars. Foremost among these is the announcement of banded terrain observations indicating the presence and action of liquid carbon dioxide (CO2) or water on the surface of Mars in its recent geological past. HiRISE was able to photograph the Phoenix lander during its parachuted descent to Vastitas Borealis on May 25, 2008 (sol 990).
The orbiter continued to experience recurring problems in 2009, including four spontaneous resets, culminating in a four-month shut-down of the spacecraft from August to December. While engineers have not determined the cause of the recurrent resets, they have created new software to help troubleshoot the problem should it recur.
On March 3, 2010, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter passed another significant milestone, having transmitted over 100 terabits of data back to Earth, which was more than all other interplanetary probes sent from Earth combined.
On August 6, 2012 (sol 2483), the orbiter passed over Gale crater, the landing site of the Mars Science Laboratory mission, during its EDL phase. It captured an image via the HiRISE camera of the Curiosity rover descending with its backshell and supersonic parachute.
NASA reported that the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, as well as the Mars Odyssey Orbiter and MAVEN orbiter had a chance to study the Comet Siding Spring flyby on October 19, 2014.
On July 29, 2015, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was placed into a new orbit to provide communications support during the arrival of the InSight Mars lander mission on September 28, 2016. The maneuver’s engine burn lasted for 75 seconds.”
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