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USSF completes service dress uniform fit tests
March 30, 2023
WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Space Force completed its final service dress uniform fit test March 27-31 at the Pentagon. The initial fit test was conducted February 13-17 at Peterson Space Force Base.
Fit tests are an essential process in developing the prototype’s sizing and fit. One hundred Guardians worldwide were selected as fit test participants, an important milestone in delivering a first-rate uniform.
“From the word ‘go’ we have been committed to keeping Guardian feedback at the forefront of developing the service dress,” said Col. James Jenkins, director of the Office of Change Management Team. “We know Guardians are excited for a uniform they can call their own and we are accelerating as quickly as possible to deliver a product they can wear with pride.”
The Space Force unveiled its initial service dress uniform prototype in September 2021, quickly followed by a uniform roadshow garnering Guardian feedback.
“We used Guardian focus groups and roadshows to narrow service dress design options,” said Wade Yamada, U.S. Space Force Director of Staff deputy. “We listened intently to Guardian design and fit requests. In many ways, Guardians helped select our current service dress design.”
The next step in developing the service dress uniform is the wear test to assess the durability, functionality and comfort of the prototype. The wear test will begin in summer 2023.
During the wear test, Guardians will wear the uniform three times a week and provide detailed feedback assessing the prototypes.
“We are excited by Guardians’ input into their future uniform,” said Catherine Lovelady, Office of Change Management Team uniform lead. “We are passionate about ensuring our members continue to have a voice in shaping a unique Space Force uniform.”
Guardian feedback will continually be at the forefront of uniform development as the service works toward delivering to the force in late 2025.
https://www.spaceforce.mil/News/Article/3346940/ussf-completes-service-dress-uniform-fit-tests/
Nokia is set to launch 4G internet services on the moon later this year
Mar 29, 2023
Finnish telecommunications major Nokia plans to set up 4G networks on the moon. Yep. The moon. The company hopes to aid lunar discoveries by enabling internet access on the Earth's natural satellite.
Plans are in motion to launch the network on a SpaceX rocket over the coming months, Nokia’s principal engineer - Luis Maestro Ruiz De Temino - told reporters earlier this month at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona.
According to the manufacturer, the network on the moon is going to be powered by an antenna-equipped base station stored in a Nova-C lunar lander designed by U.S. space firm Intuitive Machines, as well as by an accompanying solar-powered rover.
Once on the surface, an LTE connection will be established between the lander and the rover. The infrastructure will land on the Shackleton crater, which lies along the southern limb of the moon.
The network will be used within Nasa’s Artemis 1 mission, which aims to send the first human astronauts to walk on the moon’s surface since 1972.
The aim is to show that terrestrial networks can meet the communications needs for future space missions, Nokia said, adding that its network will allow astronauts to communicate with each other and with mission control, as well as to control the rover remotely and stream real-time video and telemetry data back to Earth.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/new-updates/nokia-is-set-to-launch-4g-internet-services-on-the-moon-later-this-year/articleshow/99085339.cms
Hubble Finds Saturn's Rings Heating Its Atmosphere
Mar 30, 2023
The secret has been hiding in plain view for 40 years. But it took the insight of a veteran astronomer to pull it all together within a year, using observations of Saturn from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and retired Cassini probe, in addition to the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft and the retired International Ultraviolet Explorer mission.
The discovery: Saturn's vast ring system is heating the giant planet's upper atmosphere. The phenomenon has never before been seen in the solar system. It's an unexpected interaction between Saturn and its rings that potentially could provide a tool for predicting if planets around other stars have glorious Saturn-like ring systems, too.
The telltale evidence is an excess of ultraviolet radiation, seen as a spectral line of hot hydrogen in Saturn's atmosphere. The bump in radiation means that something is contaminating and heating the upper atmosphere from the outside.
The most feasible explanation is that icy ring particles raining down onto Saturn's atmosphere cause this heating. This could be due to the impact of micrometeorites, solar wind particle bombardment, solar ultraviolet radiation, or electromagnetic forces picking up electrically charged dust. All this happens under the influence of Saturn's gravitational field pulling particles into the planet. When NASA's Cassini probe plunged into Saturn's atmosphere at the end of its mission in 2017, it measured the atmospheric constituents and confirmed that many particles are falling in from the rings.
"Though the slow disintegration of the rings is well known, its influence on the atomic hydrogen of the planet is a surprise. From the Cassini probe, we already knew about the rings' influence. However, we knew nothing about the atomic hydrogen content," said Lotfi Ben-Jaffel of the Institute of Astrophysics in Paris and the Lunar & Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, author of a paper published on March 30 in the Planetary Science Journal.
"Everything is driven by ring particles cascading into the atmosphere at specific latitudes. They modify the upper atmosphere, changing the composition," said Ben-Jaffel. "And then you also have collisional processes with atmospheric gasses that are probably heating the atmosphere at a specific altitude."
Ben-Jaffel's conclusion required pulling together archival ultraviolet-light (UV) observations from four space missions that studied Saturn. This includes observations from the two NASA Voyager probes that flew by Saturn in the 1980s and measured the UV excess. At the time, astronomers dismissed the measurements as noise in the detectors. The Cassini mission, which arrived at Saturn in 2004, also collected UV data on the atmosphere (over several years). Additional data came from Hubble and the International Ultraviolet Explorer, which launched in 1978, and was an international collaboration between NASA, ESA (European Space Agency), and the United Kingdom's Science and Engineering Research Council.
But the lingering question was whether all the data could be illusory, or instead reflected a true phenomenon on Saturn.
The key to assembling the jigsaw puzzle came in Ben-Jaffel's decision to use measurements from Hubble's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS). Its precision observations of Saturn were used to calibrate the archival UV data from all four other space missions that have observed Saturn. He compared the STIS UV observations of Saturn to the distribution of light from multiple space missions and instruments.
"When everything was calibrated, we saw clearly that the spectra are consistent across all the missions. This was possible because we have the same reference point, from Hubble, on the rate of transfer of energy from the atmosphere as measured over decades," Ben-Jaffel said. "It was really a surprise for me. I just plotted the different light distribution data together, and then I realized, wow – it's the same."
Four decades of UV data cover multiple solar cycles and help astronomers study the Sun's seasonal effects on Saturn. By bringing all the diverse data together and calibrating it, Ben-Jaffel found that there is no difference to the level of UV radiation. "At any time, at any position on the planet, we can follow the UV level of radiation," he said. This points to the steady "ice rain" from Saturn's rings as the best explanation.
"We are just at the beginning of this ring characterization effect on the upper atmosphere of a planet. We eventually want to have a global approach that would yield a real signature about the atmospheres on distant worlds. One of the goals of this study is to see how we can apply it to planets orbiting other stars. Call it the search for 'exo-rings.'"
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/hubble-finds-saturns-rings-heating-its-atmosphere
New Program Office Leads NASA’s Path Forward for Moon, Mars
Mar 30, 2023
NASA has established the new Moon to Mars Program Office at NASA Headquarters in Washington to carry out the agency’s human exploration activities at the Moon and Mars for the benefit of humanity. Amit Kshatriya will serve as the agency’s first head of the office, effective immediately.
This new office resides within the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, reporting to its Associate Administrator Jim Free.
“The Moon to Mars Program Office will help prepare NASA to carry out our bold missions to the Moon and land the first humans on Mars,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “The golden age of exploration is happening right now, and this new office will help ensure that NASA successfully establishes a long-term lunar presence needed to prepare for humanity’s next giant leap to the Red Planet.”
As directed by the 2022 NASA Authorization Act, the Moon to Mars Program Office focuses on hardware development, mission integration, and risk management functions for programs critical to the agency’s exploration approach that uses Artemis missions at the Moon to open a new era of scientific discovery and prepare for human missions to Mars. This includes the Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft, supporting ground systems, human landing systems, spacesuits, Gateway, and more related to deep space exploration. The new office will also lead planning and analysis for long-lead developments to support human Mars missions.
Kshatriya previously served as acting deputy associate administrator for Common Exploration Systems Development, providing leadership and integration across several of the programs that now fall within the new office.
Lakiesha Hawkins will serve as the deputy for the Moon to Mars Program Office. As deputy, Hawkins will support Kshatriya in all aspects of the office’s day-to-day management and operations. Stephen Creech will serve as the technical deputy for the office. In this capacity, Creech will be responsible for ensuring technical issues are identified and brought to resolution across all of the offices and programs under the Moon to Mars Program Office.
Updates to the mission directorate also include the Strategy and Architecture Office that develops the integrated master plan based on the agency Moon to Mars Objectives, alongside NASA’s Science, Space Technology, and Space Operations Mission Directorates. With these changes, NASA will continue to lead the nation in exploration while also building a coalition of international partners in deep space with the Artemis Accords.
Since establishing its Exploration Systems Mission Directorate in September 2021, NASA has worked diligently to assess and align its two human spaceflight organizations while remaining focused on Artemis and other agency mission priorities including International Space Station operations, commercial crew and cargo, and more.
The Space Operations Mission Directorate remains responsible for all low-Earth orbit space operations and is focused on the space station, space communications and navigation supporting all NASA human and science exploration missions, as well as a continued development of a vibrant and expanding commercial space economy closer to home. Space Operations also manages the Launch Services Program, Commercial Crew Program, Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development Program, Human Spaceflight Capabilities, and other associated resources.
Other organizational updates include a business function for each mission directorate to manage administrative processes and financial formulation, and the exploration operations function will report to the Moon to Mars Program to maximize efficiency for integrated risk management with the relevant hardware programs supporting Artemis missions.
Through Artemis, NASA will land the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon, paving the way for a long-term, sustainable lunar presence to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before and prepare for future astronaut missions to Mars. This is NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach.
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/new-program-office-leads-nasa-s-path-forward-for-moon-mars
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/amit-kshatriya/