Pending Launch Will Signal Start of Historic NASA Stennis Mission

MAR 04, 2024

For NASA’s Stennis Space Center, anticipation is high for the scheduled launch today, Monday, March 4, of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that will mark the initial step in the Center’s first-ever in-space mission. The launch window is 5:05 to 5:59 p.m. EST, with liftoff currently targeted for 5:05 pm EST.

The SpaceX Transporter 10 mission, to be launched from Vandenburg Space Force Base in California, is a dedicated rideshare mission carrying dozens of government and commercial micro- and nanosatellites to orbit. The cargo includes the Sidus Space premier LizzieSatTM-1 (LS-1) satellite, being launched on a pathfinder and technology demonstrator mission.

In an ongoing partnership with NASA Stennis, one of a handful of payloads being flown by Sidus Space on LS-1 is ASTRA (Autonomous Satellite Technology for Resilient Applications). ASTRA is a hardware and software payload developed by the Autonomous Systems Laboratory (ASL) team at the NASA site near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.

“This is real-time history-in-the-making for NASA Stennis,” Acting Center Director John Bailey said. “This historic autonomous systems payload for NASA Stennis lines up with our plans to accelerate the exploration and commercialization of space to benefit NASA and the aerospace industry at large.”

Launch of Transporter 10, with deployment of the LS-1 satellite and activation of its individual payloads still to come, represents an exciting first step as NASA Stennis builds momentum and seeks to grow in its work with autonomous systems.

Upon successful startup, ASTRA will use its digital twin and integrated health management capabilities to monitor satellite performance, and to detect anomalies and identify their cause. The NASA Stennis ASL team will be able to update the ASTRA software in orbit to add capabilities during the mission. Ultimately, ASTRA will demonstrate autonomous operation of LS-1.

“This is a unique opportunity to demonstrate autonomous technology in space and learn valuable information about the software,” NASA Stennis Autonomous Systems Laboratory Branch Chief Chris Carmichael said. “Autonomous operations improve reliability while reducing risks. This work is critical for future deep space missions to ensure mission success.”

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/pending-launch-will-signal-start-of-historic-nasa-stennis-mission/

Webb Unlocks Secrets of One of the Most Distant Galaxies Ever Seen

MAR 04, 2024

Looking deeply into space and time, two teams using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have studied the exceptionally luminous galaxy GN-z11, which existed when our 13.8 billion-year-old universe was only about 430 million years old.

Initially detected with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, this galaxy — one of the youngest and most distant ever observed — is so bright that it is challenging scientists to understand why. Now, GN-z11 is giving up some of its secrets.

Vigorous Black Hole Is Most Distant Ever Found

A team studying GN-z11 with Webb found the first clear evidence that the galaxy is hosting a central, supermassive black hole that is rapidly accreting matter. Their finding makes this the farthest active supermassive black hole spotted to date.

“We found extremely dense gas that is common in the vicinity of supermassive black holes accreting gas,” explained principal investigator Roberto Maiolino of the Cavendish Laboratory and the Kavli Institute of Cosmology at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. “These were the first clear signatures that GN-z11 is hosting a black hole that is gobbling matter.”

Image: GOODS-North field of galaxies

Using Webb, the team also found indications of ionized chemical elements typically observed near accreting supermassive black holes. Additionally, they discovered a very powerful wind being expelled by the galaxy. Such high-velocity winds are typically driven by processes associated with vigorously accreting supermassive black holes.

“Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) has revealed an extended component, tracing the host galaxy, and a central, compact source whose colors are consistent with those of an accretion disk surrounding a black hole,” said investigator Hannah Übler, also of the Cavendish Laboratory and the Kavli Institute.

Together, this evidence shows that GN-z11 hosts a 2-million-solar-mass, supermassive black hole in a very active phase of consuming matter, which is why it's so luminous.

Pristine Gas Clump in GN-z11’s Halo Intrigues Researchers

A second team, also led by Maiolino, used Webb’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) to find a gaseous clump of helium in the halo surrounding GN-z11.

“The fact that we don't see anything else beyond helium suggests that this clump must be fairly pristine,” said Maiolino. “This is something that was expected by theory and simulations in the vicinity of particularly massive galaxies from these epochs — that there should be pockets of pristine gas surviving in the halo, and these may collapse and form Population III star clusters.”

Finding the never-before-seen Population III stars — the first generation of stars formed almost entirely from hydrogen and helium — is one of the most important goals of modern astrophysics. These stars are anticipated to be very massive, very luminous, and very hot. Their expected signature is the presence of ionized helium and the absence of chemical elements heavier than helium.

The formation of the first stars and galaxies marks a fundamental shift in cosmic history, during which the universe evolved from a dark and relatively simple state into the highly structured and complex environment we see today.

In future Webb observations, Maiolino, Übler, and their team will explore GN-z11 in greater depth, and they hope to strengthen the case for the Population III stars that may be forming in its halo.

The research on the pristine gas clump in GN-z11’s halo has been accepted for publication by Astronomy & Astrophysics. The results of the study of GN-z11’s black hole were published in the journal Nature on January 17, 2024. The data was obtained as part of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES), a joint project between the NIRCam and NIRSpec teams.

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/webb-unlocks-secrets-of-one-of-the-most-distant-galaxies-ever-seen/

US start-up backed by Shell, Amazon and Nasa unveils 'first ever industrial-scale AEM electrolyser for low-cost green hydrogen'

5 March 2024 13:40 GMT

Ohio-based Power to Hydrogen (P2H2) says it has successfully demonstrated a fully integrated electrolysis system using its AEM stack at a pilot facility in Columbus, Ohio, belonging to partner American Electric Power (AEP) — in conjunction with three European utilities: Portugal’s EDP, Germany’s E.ON and Ireland’s ESB.

“The system demonstrated the ability to react quickly to load changes and produce hydrogen more efficiently than any renewable load-following product on the market,” said P2H2, adding that its patented technology has higher performance and durability than conventional AEM electrolyser designs.

AEM electrolysers are often described as a cross between alkaline and proton-exchange-membrane (PEM) electrolysers, with all the benefits of both, but none of the downsides.

So AEM machines share PEM’s ability to quickly ramp up and down in response to variable wind and solar power, but without the need for the expensive platinum and iridium required by PEM, giving it similar costs to alkaline electrolysers, but with greater efficiency. (Note: manufacturers of pressurised alkaline electrolysers say the same about their technology.)

However, AEM is a relatively new technology that is yet to reach broad commercial acceptability, despite the best efforts of AEM market leader Enapter. Germany’s Sunfire, which today announced more than €500m of new financing, is also developing new AEM technology in collaboration with Canada’s Ionomr Innovations.

P2H2 declined to tell Hydrogen Insight the size of the new electrolyser stack, but said it was developing electrolyser modules in the “hundreds of kilowatts” range — and a series of images made available to Hydrogen Insight suggests they will be 250kW machines.

The company added that its technology operates at high pressures, removing the need for additional energy-sapping compressors in the balance of plant (BOP), and that system-level efficiencies had already reached 50kWh/kgH2 — a good, but not earth-shattering figure.

On top of this, its equipment can reach full operating speed from start-up in less than a minute, compared to an average 50 minutes for alkaline machines and about five minutes for PEM.

Enapter offers 2.4kW AEM modules that can be combined in series to produce megawatt-scale electrolysers, while Sunfire is developing AEM machines in the “upper double-digit kW range”.

“Larger stacks operate more efficiently by using higher voltages, and can reduce capital cost by reducing part counts,” P2H2’s vice-president of business development, Alex Zorniger, tells Hydrogen Insight.

“Delivering 10MW+ systems with 4,000 2.4kW stacks leads to inefficiencies in the repeat units of the BOP. However, stacks that are too large cannot achieve scale-up quantities sufficient for substantial cost savings.”

Zorniger adds that P2H2 will deploy an industrial-scale pilot “focused on enabling a 10MW+ commercial-scale system” later this year, with plans to begin selling systems commercially in 2026.

“Renewable load following electrolyzers need to be sold for under $450/kW to make hydrogen for less than $2/kg,” Zorniger says, adding that PEM machines sell for roughly $1,000-2,000/kW.

“We aim to hit that goal initially and continue to drive costs down from there. Certain alkaline systems are targeting that cost as well, but typically produce low-pressure hydrogen and cannot tie into renewables.”

That latter point is somewhat debatable, with many developers opting for technologically mature alkaline electrolysers, including at the world’s largest green hydrogen project under construction — Neom’s 2.2GW facility in northwest Saudi Arabia, which is being built with alkaline machines supplied by Germany’s Thyssenkrupp Nucera.

P2H2 has so far received financing from Shell’s GameChanger programme, which offers support, expertise and seed funding to technology start-ups; the aforementioned utilities and AEP; as well as Enel Green Power, the US Department of Energy’s Arpa-E programme, and US space agency Nasa.

Zorniger says that Nasa is supporting P2H2 because it “is interested in producing high-pressure hydrogen and oxygen on the Moon for energy storage, propellants, and life support”.

https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/innovation/us-start-up-backed-by-shell-amazon-and-nasa-unveils-first-ever-industrial-scale-aem-electrolyser-for-low-cost-green-hydrogen/2-1-1608084