NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

Jan 20, 2024

Falcon Heavy Boostback Burn

The December 28 night launch of a Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida marked the fifth launch for the rocket's reusable side boosters. About 2 minutes 20 seconds into the flight, the two side boosters separated from the rocket's core stage. Starting just after booster separation, this three minute long exposure captures the pair's remarkable boostback burns, maneuvers executed prior to their return to landing zones on planet Earth. While no attempt was made to recover the Falcon Heavy's core stage, both side boosters landed successfully and can be flown again. The four previous flights for these side boosters included last October's launch of NASA's asteroid-bound Psyche mission.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?

NASA Science, Astrobotic Peregrine Mission One Concludes

JAN 19, 2024

The first flight of NASA’s commercial lunar delivery service carrying agency science and technology, as well as other customer payloads intended for the Moon, has come to an end. After 10 days and 13 hours in space, Astrobotic’s Peregrine Mission One made a controlled re-entry on Earth over open water in the South Pacific at approximately 4:04 p.m. EST on Jan. 18.

Astrobotic was the first commercial vendor to launch a mission to the Moon as part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative, which aims to advance capabilities for science, exploration or commercial development of the Moon under the agency’s Artemis campaign. There are seven additional CLPS deliveries awarded to multiple American companies, with more awards expected this year and for years to come. The next CLPS commercial flight is targeted for no earlier than February.

Following a successful launch and separation from the rocket on Jan. 8, the spacecraft experienced a propulsion issue preventing Peregrine from softly landing on the Moon. After analysis and recommendations from NASA and the space community, Astrobotic determined the best option for minimizing risk and ensuring responsible disposal of the spacecraft would be to maintain Peregrine’s trajectory toward Earth, where it burned up upon re-entry.

“Space exploration is a daring task, and the science and spaceflight data collected from Astrobotic’s lunar lander is better preparing NASA for future CLPS deliveries and crewed missions under Artemis,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “The future of exploration is strengthened by collaboration. Together with our commercial partners, NASA is supporting a growing commercial space economy that will help take humanity back to the Moon, and beyond.”

Four out five NASA payloads on Peregrine successfully powered on and collected data while in flight:

Linear Energy Transfer Spectrometer (LETS)

Near-Infrared Volatile Spectrometer System (NIRVSS)

Neutron Spectrometer System (NSS)

Peregrine Ion-Trap Mass Spectrometer (PITMS)

As NASA’s LRA (Laser Retroreflector Array) instrument is a passive experiment, and operations could only take place on the lunar surface.

NASA science teams are currently working to interpret the results. Preliminary data suggests the instruments have measured natural radiation and chemical compounds in the area around the lander.

“Astrobotic’s Peregrine mission provided an invaluable opportunity to test our science and instruments in space, optimizing our process for collecting data and providing a benchmark for future missions,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The data collected in flight sets the stage for understanding how some of our instruments may behave in the harsh environment of space when some of the duplicates fly on future CLPS flights.”

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-science-astrobotic-peregrine-mission-one-concludes/

NASA loses contact with the Ingenuity Mars helicopter

January 20, 2024

NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter has remained isolated from the outside world.

Ingenuity's operators lost contact with the 4-pound (1.8 kg) helicopter on Thursday (Jan. 18), near the end of its 72nd Mars mission.

“Data sent to the Perseverance rover (which acts as a relay between the helicopter and the ground) during the flight indicates that it successfully ascended to its assigned maximum altitude of 40 feet (12 meters),” NASA officials wrote in a statement. Updated Friday (January 19).

They added: “During the planned landing, communications between the helicopter and the rover ended early, before landing.” “The innovation team is analyzing the available data and considering the next steps to restore communications with the helicopter.”

Creativity and perseverance landed together in February 2021 on the floor of the 28-mile-wide (45-kilometer) Jezero Crater, which harbored a large lake and river delta billions of years ago.

Perseverance searches for evidence of past life on Mars and collects samples for future return to Earth. Ingenuity serves as an explorer for the car-sized rover, an extended mission awarded by NASA after the small helicopter passed its original five-flight technology demonstration campaign in the spring of 2021.

It may be time for Perseverance to return the favor and help its little robotic cousin.

“Perseverance is currently out of line of sight with Ingenuity, but the team could consider driving closer for a visual inspection,” NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages both robot missions, said. He said via X on Friday.

The positions of NASA's Perseverance rover (right) and the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars on January 19, 2024. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Ingenuity stayed aloft for more than 128 minutes and covered a total of 11 miles (17.7 kilometers) during 72 trips to Mars, according to Mission trip log.

It is currently unclear whether these numbers will continue to rise. We'll have to wait and see if Ingenuity can reconnect with the pioneering helicopter, the first vehicle ever to explore the skies of an extraterrestrial world.

https://www.devhardware.com/nasa-loses-contact-with-the-ingenuity-mars-helicopter/

Office of Space Commerce starts commercial pathfinder project for civil space traffic coordination system

January 19, 2024

The Office of Space Commerce has selected three companies to participate in a pathfinder program that could lead to the incorporation of commercial data into its space traffic coordination system.

The office announced Jan. 19 that placed orders with COMSPOC, LeoLabs and Slingshot Aerospace for data and services related to objects in low Earth orbit. The orders are part of what the office calls a Consolidated Pathfinder project to test how the office can incorporate commercial space situational awareness (SSA) data.

The Office of Space Commerce is charged with establishing a civil space traffic coordination system, which it calls the Traffic Coordination System for Space or TraCSS. It is designed to take over from the Defense Department responsibilities for tracking space objects and providing warnings of potential conjunctions to government and commercial satellite operators.

“Through this pathfinder, and others to follow, we are working diligently toward incorporating commercial capabilities into TraCSS,” Rich DalBello, director of the Office of Space Commerce, said in a statement. “The Office of Space Commerce has always championed the government’s use of commercial space capabilities, and it is a core enabler of our own SSA program.”

Two of the companies will provide both catalogs of objects they track in low Earth orbit — LeoLabs using its network of radars and Slingshot with its group of optical telescopes — as well as related services. The third company, COMSPOC, will provide orbit determination services. A fourth company, yet to be selected, will provide data integrity services.

“We will be providing them the entire catalog, plus our expertise and insight, so they can then move to incorporate commercial data into the ultimate TraCSS system,” Kate Maliga, vice president of government affairs at LeoLabs, said in an interview. The company will also provide TraCSS with the conjunction data messages, or warnings of potential close approaches, it generates from its catalog.

Mike Wasson, vice president and general manager of COMSPOC, said his company will take the catalog data from LeoLabs and Slingshot and combine it. “We will fuse those different data sources through our orbit determination processes to create an accurate state of objects in low Earth orbit,” he said. While not a part of the current project, he said COMSPOC would be able to combine that data with additional sources using different phenomenologies, like passive radar or space-based sensors.

The Office of Space Commerce said last year it planned to conduct a series of pathfinders with industry to examine how to best incorporate commercial data into TraCSS. These tests will take place in a part of TraCSS called HORIZON, which officials described last year as a “sandbox” to do testing while not affecting operational systems.

The Consolidated Pathfinder project is slated to last about six months. The Office of Space Commerce said it is planning a separate pathfinder project, called Improved Satellite Owner/Operator Ephemeris, that will incorporate satellite position data provided directly by the operators of satellites.

https://spacenews.com/office-of-space-commerce-starts-commercial-pathfinder-project-for-civil-space-traffic-coordination-system/

>>20272216

Lets go Karen

Lets go Brandon

Kek