NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

Feb 21, 2024

Seagull Nebula over Pinnacles' Peak

The bird is bigger than the peak. Nicknamed for its avian shape, the Seagull Nebula is an emission nebula on the night sky that is vast, spanning an angle over five times the diameter of the full moon and over 200 light years. The head of the nebula is catalogued as IC 2177, and the star cluster under its right wing is catalogued as NGC 2343. Consisting of mostly red-glowing hydrogen gas, the Seagull Nebula incorporates some dust lanes and is forming stars. The peak over which this Seagull seems to soar occurs at Pinnacles National Park in California, USA. The featured image is a composite of long exposure images of the background sky and short exposure images of the foreground, all taken consecutively with the same camera and from the same location.

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

NASA Sets Coverage of First US Uncrewed Commercial Moon Landing

FEB 20, 2024

As part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis campaign, Intuitive Machines is targeting no earlier than 5:49 p.m. EST Thursday, Feb. 22, to land their Odysseus lunar lander near Malapert A in the South Pole region of the Moon.

Live landing coverage will air on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. NASA TV can be streamed on a variety of platforms, including social media. Coverage will include live streaming and blog updates beginning 4:15 p.m., as the landing milestones occur. Upon successful landing, Intuitive Machines and NASA will host a news conference to discuss the mission and science opportunities that lie ahead as the company begins lunar surface operations.

In May 2019, the agency awarded a task order for scientific payload delivery to Intuitive Machines. Odysseus launched at 1:05 a.m., Feb. 15, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

NASA is working with several U.S. companies to deliver science and technology to the lunar surface through the agency’s CLPS initiative. This pool of companies may bid on task orders for end-to-end delivery services, which includes payload integration and operations, launching from Earth, and landing on the surface of the Moon. NASA’s CLPS contracts are indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts with a cumulative maximum contract value of $2.6 billion through 2028.

Through the Artemis campaign, commercial robotic deliveries will perform science experiments, test technologies, and demonstrate capabilities to help NASA explore the Moon in advance of Artemis Generation astronaut missions to the lunar surface, and ultimately crewed missions to Mars.

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-sets-coverage-of-first-us-uncrewed-commercial-moon-landing/

NASA’s New Horizons Detects Dusty Hints of Extended Kuiper Belt

FEB 20, 2024

New observations from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft hint that the Kuiper Belt – the vast, distant outer zone of our solar system populated by hundreds of thousands of icy, rocky planetary building blocks – might stretch much farther out than we thought.

Speeding through the outer edges of the Kuiper Belt, almost 60 times farther from the Sun than Earth, the New Horizons Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter (SDC) instrument is detecting higher than expected levels of dust – the tiny frozen remnants of collisions between larger Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) and particles kicked up from KBOs being peppered by microscopic dust impactors from outside of the solar system.

The readings defy scientific models that the KBO population and density of dust should start to decline a billion miles inside that distance and contribute to a growing body of evidence that suggests the outer edge of the main Kuiper Belt could extend billions of miles farther than current estimates – or that there could even be a second belt beyond the one we already know.

The results appear in the Feb. 1 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

“New Horizons is making the first direct measurements of interplanetary dust far beyond Neptune and Pluto, so every observation could lead to a discovery,” said Alex Doner, lead author of the paper and a physics graduate student at the University of Colorado Boulder who serves as SDC lead. “The idea that we might have detected an extended Kuiper Belt — with a whole new population of objects colliding and producing more dust – offers another clue in solving the mysteries of the solar system’s most distant regions.”

Designed and built by students at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado Boulder under the guidance of professional engineers, SDC has detected microscopic dust grains produced by collisions among asteroids, comets and Kuiper Belt objects all along New Horizons’ 5-billion-mile, 18-year journey across our solar system – which after launch in 2006 included historic flybys of Pluto in 2015 and the KBO Arrokoth in 2019. The first science instrument on a NASA planetary mission to be designed, built and “flown” by students, the SDC counts and measures the sizes of dust particles, producing information on the collision rates of such bodies in the outer solar system.

The latest, surprising results were compiled over three years as New Horizons traveled from 45 to 55 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun – with one AU being the distance between Earth and Sun, about 93 million miles or 140 million kilometers.

These readings come as New Horizons scientists, using observatories like the Japanese Subaru Telescope in Hawaii, have also discovered a number KBOs far beyond the traditional outer edge of the Kuiper Belt. This outer edge (where the density of objects starts to decline) was thought to be at about 50 AU, but new evidence suggests the belt may extend to 80 AU, or farther.

As telescope observations continue, Doner said, scientists are looking at other possible reasons for the high SDC dust readings. One possibility, perhaps less likely, is radiation pressure and other factors pushing dust created in the inner Kuiper Belt out past 50 AU. New Horizons could also have encountered shorter-lived ice particles that cannot reach the inner parts of the solar system and were not yet accounted for in the current models of the Kuiper Belt.

“These new scientific results from New Horizons may be the first time that any spacecraft has discovered a new population of bodies in our solar system,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder. “I can’t wait to see how much farther out these elevated Kuiper Belt dust levels go.”

Now into its second extended mission, New Horizons is expected to have sufficient propellant and power to operate through the 2040s, at distances beyond 100 AU from the Sun. That far out, mission scientists say, the SDC could potentially even record the spacecraft’s transition into a region where interstellar particles dominate the dust environment. With complementary telescopic observations of the Kuiper Belt from Earth, New Horizons, as the only spacecraft operating in and collecting new information about the Kuiper Belt, has a unique opportunity to learn more about KBOs, dust sources and expanse of the belt, and interstellar dust and the dust disks around other stars.

https://www.nasa.gov/missions/new-horizons/nasas-new-horizons-detects-dusty-hints-of-extended-kuiper-belt/

NASA brings back retro 'worm' logo for upcoming Artemis 2 moon mission

Feb 21, 2024

The worm is going to the moon.

Artemis 2, the first human moon mission in 50 years, will carry the iconic NASA "worm" logo upon the solid rocket boosters helping to heft the astronauts into space, agency officials stated on Thursday (Feb. 16).

"That's no earthworm you see on SLS! The NASA worm logo is inching into place on our boosters," NASA's official account for the Space Launch System stated on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday. Each letter of the worm is nearly 7 feet (2 meters) high and the logo is roughly 25 feet (7.5 meters) from end to end.

The curvy NASA lettering was also recently painted in a smaller form on the Orion spacecraft that will bear the four astronauts on the round-the-moon mission no earlier than September 2025 during the first crewed excursion for the spacecraft.

The worm logo was first used in 1975 after being designed by Danne & Blackburn, a New York-based studio who recreated the NASA wording under the U.S. Federal Design Improvement Program, according to Design Week.

Worms started crawling their way into space during the joint U.S. and Russian Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975, continuing to inch their way into orbit during the space shuttle and Hubble Space Telescope launching era.

In 1992, however, then NASA-administrator Dan Goldin retired the worm logo in favor of a "meatball" version to invoke the "glory days" of Apollo, according to agency materials. But the worm made a comeback for limited mission opportunities in 2020, starting with the first SpaceX mission with astronauts on board, under the approval of then-administrator Jim Bridenstine.

"I grew up with the worm as the logo of NASA. It is kind of personal to me," Bridenstine told Space.com partner collectSPACE in 2020. "This is NASA."

Work on the Artemis 2 hardware at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, as well as other locations, continues. The mission was recently delayed nine months to September 2025 due to several technical issues. Delayed too was Artemis 3, now slated for 2026 instead of 2025.

"It takes courage to make the right decision," Artemis 2 astronaut Jeremy Hansen, a mission specialist with the Canadian Space Agency, told Space.com in exclusive interview this month. "In this case," he added, "this one was very clearly the right decision. There are concrete things that we know we will use this time for."

The mission includes NASA commander Reid Wiseman, NASA pilot Victor Glover (who will become the first Black person to leave low Earth orbit, or LEO), NASA mission specialist Christina Koch (the first woman to go beyond LEO) and Hansen (the first non-American).

NASA, Canada and more than 30 other countries have signed up for a set of peaceful space exploration norms under the U.S.-led Artemis Accords. A subset of those countries, like Canada and certain members of the European Space Agency, have committed also to contributing hardware for the Artemis program's moon aims.

https://www.space.com/artemis-2-moon-mission-nasa-worm-logo

Dead, 5,000-pound satellite is falling to Earth today. Will any debris survive the fiery reentry?

Feb 21, 2024

A European Space Agency spacecraft is making an uncontrolled nosedive into Earth's atmosphere – with elements of the 2.3-ton spent satellite likely to survive the plunge into purgatory.

The exact time and place above Earth that the radar-scanning ESA European Remote Sensing (ERS-2) augers in is unknown, but a new prediction of the spacecraft's demise has been issued.

Using the most recent data, ESA's Space Debris Office predicted as of 6:30 a.m. EST (1130 GMT) on Wednesday (Feb. 21) that the reentry of ESA's ERS-2 satellite will take place at 10:41 a.m. EST (1541 GMT) on Wednesday (Feb. 21).

The uncertainty in this prediction is now just (+/- 1.44 hours), according to an ESA statement.

"This uncertainty is due primarily to the influence of unpredictable solar activity, which affects the density of Earth's atmosphere and therefore the drag experienced by the satellite," ESA adds.

Leftovers

As for the ERS-2 re-entry itself, there’s likely to be post-re-entry spacecraft leftovers.

"It is likely that some parts survive the re-entry, as on average between 10 and 20 percent of the mass for large objects does," says Simona-Elena Nichiteanu, a media relations officer in the communication department at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC). ESOC serves as the main mission control center for ESA in Darmstadt, Germany.

Component survival

As for the ERS-2 component survival to Earth’s surface, Nichiteanu told Space.com that the biggest and heaviest fragments that might survive reentry into the atmosphere are the 4 tanks (heaviest), the 3 internal panels supporting instruments (largest cross section) and the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) antenna structure (largest fragment assuming it does not fragment at all).

A vast majority of ERS-2 will "burn up" in the atmosphere, ESA experts explain. Furthermore, given that the Earth is largely ocean water-rich, chances are for splash down of any remaining spacecraft components.

Orbital debris regulation

The fall of ERS-2 can be viewed both as a calling card from space and a wake-up call.

"While the ESA should be lauded for its efforts to de-orbit the ERS-2, it should be unsurprising that a 2.3-ton satellite launched into Earth orbit without any enforceable orbital debris regulation will then return to Earth's atmosphere as orbital debris in an explosive uncontrolled reentry," said Michael Runnels, an assistant professor of business law at California State University, Los Angeles.

"Indeed, these events highlight the continuing need for enforceable orbital debris regulation to support the sustainable exploration and scientific investigation of outer space," Runnels said.

https://www.space.com/satellite-ers-2-esa-debris-prediction

USSF successfully concludes VICTUS NOX Tactically Responsive Space mission

Feb. 20, 2024

From acquisition to on-orbit operations, the historic mission set a new standard for Tactically Responsive Space, or TacRS, by demonstrating an end-to-end capability to rapidly respond to adversary aggression. From the time the mission was conceived, the VICTUS NOX team seamlessly executed each phase of the effort: Build, Hot-Standby, Activation, Alert, Launch, Initialization and On-orbit Operations.

“From the warehouse to on-orbit capability in a week. That’s tactically responsive,” said U.S. Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman during a fireside chat last October. “That is something that you can respond to irresponsible behavior on-orbit and the response is directly connected to that irresponsible behavior.”

The Build Phase culminated with a Flight Readiness Review less than one year after contracts were awarded to Firefly Aerospace and Millennium Space Systems, a Boeing Company. In that time, the spacecraft was pulled from an active production line, modified with an additional space domain awareness payload and readied for launch.

In addition, all of the normal processes associated with the launch of a satellite - such as spectrum assignment, or the process of assigning a particular frequency or band to a communications device; authority to operate approvals; and launch and space vehicle certifications - were completed. After the Build Phase was complete, the team entered the Hot-Standby Phase waiting on the call to activate.

On Sept. 8, 2023, the team was ordered to execute the Activation Phase and completed it within 57 hours, beating the 60-hour goal. After the call came, the team transported the spacecraft from the factory to the launch site payload processing facility, fueled the vehicle and conducted final testing. The mission then entered the Alert Phase.

On Sept. 13, 2023, with no prior notice, the Space Force provided the final orbit parameters and ordered the team to launch. The Launch Phase met its goal of being ready for launch within 24 hours, with liftoff taking place at the first available launch window, 27 hours after receipt of the launch order. After reaching orbit, it took only 37 hours to complete the Initialization Phase, once again beating the 48-hour goal. Once on-orbit operations began, the VICTUS NOX team quickly completed multiple maneuvers to conduct rendezvous and proximity operations and SDA.

The VICTUS NOX on-orbit operations team was comprised of members from multiple organizations across the Space Force. Personnel from the Space Delta 12’s (DEL 12) 3rd Test and Evaluation Squadron at Schriever Space Force Base led the initial on-orbit operations with a team to include members from Space Safari, the USSF’s Tactically Response Space lead; 20th Space Surveillance Squadron, a unit within Space Delta 2 (DEL 2) - Space Domain Awareness and Space Battle Management; and partners Millenium Space Systems and the Aerospace Corporation.

Additionally, the team received on-orbit tracking and collision avoidance support from DEL 2’s 18th Space Defense Squadron and 19th Space Defense Squadron at Peterson Space Force Base throughout the effort. DEL 2, one of nine mission deltas under Space Operations Command, leads the operational Space Domain Awareness mission on behalf of the Space Force and uses the Space Battle Management warfighting discipline to identify, characterize, and exploit opportunities and mitigate vulnerabilities in the national security space terrain.

“I couldn’t be prouder of the test and operational support the entire Space Delta 2 team provided for this game-changing mission,” said Col. Raj Agrawal, commander of DEL 2. “We quickly rose to the challenge and demonstrated that Tactically Responsive Space missions like VICTUS NOX are capable of meeting urgent combatant commander needs on tactically relevant timelines during Great Power Competition.”

After the initial on-orbit objectives were complete, Space Safari concluded the mission with SDA operations in the spacecraft’s final orbit. USSF/SSC missions are purposely designed to include end-of-life disposal for satellites, in order to reduce orbital debris and keep space accessible for all.

“Achieving VICTUS NOX’s ambitious objectives was truly a team effort,” said Lt. Col. MacKenzie Birchenough, Space Safari materiel leader. “We were fortunate to have such skilled Space Force and industry partners who executed each phase with expertise and ultimately ensured mission success.”

VICTUS NOX has laid a significant foundation that the U.S. Space Force will continue to build upon in order to normalize TacRS operations. The next demonstration, VICTUS HAZE, is expected to be awarded in the coming weeks.

https://www.spaceforce.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3680689/ussf-successfully-concludes-victus-nox-tactically-responsive-space-mission/