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NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Team Says Goodbye … for Now
April 16, 2024
The final downlink shift by the Ingenuity team was a time to reflect on a highly successful mission — and to prepare the first aircraft on another world for its new role.
Engineers working on NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter assembled for one last time in a control room at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California on Tuesday, April 16, to monitor a transmission from the history-making helicopter. While the mission ended Jan. 25, the rotorcraft has remained in communication with the agency’s Perseverance Mars rover, which serves as a base station for Ingenuity. This transmission, received through the antennas of NASA’s Deep Space Network, marked the final time the mission team would be working together on Ingenuity operations.
Now the helicopter is ready for its final act: to serve as a stationary testbed, collecting data that could benefit future explorers of the Red Planet.
“With apologies to Dylan Thomas, Ingenuity will not be going gently into that good Martian night,” said Josh Anderson, Ingenuity team lead at JPL. “It is almost unbelievable that after over 1,000 Martian days on the surface, 72 flights, and one rough landing, she still has something to give. And thanks to the dedication of this amazing team, not only did Ingenuity overachieve beyond our wildest dreams, but also it may teach us new lessons in the years to come.”
Originally designed as a short-lived technology demonstration mission that would perform up to five experimental test flights over 30 days, the first aircraft on another world operated from the Martian surface for almost three years, flew more than 14 times farther than the distance expected, and logged more than two hours of total flight time.
Ingenuity’s mission ended after the helicopter experienced a hard landing on its last flight, significantly damaging its rotor blades. Unable to fly, the rotorcraft will remain at “Valinor Hills” while the Perseverance rover drives out of communications range as it continues to explore the western limb of Jezero Crater.
Bytes and Cake
The team enjoyed some “Final Comms” chocolate cake while reviewing the latest data from over 189 million miles (304 million kilometers) away. The telemetry confirmed that a software update previously beamed up to Ingenuity was operating as expected. The new software contains commands that direct the helicopter to continue collecting data well after communications with the rover have ceased.
With the software patch in place, Ingenuity will now wake up daily, activate its flight computers, and test the performance of its solar panel, batteries, and electronic equipment. In addition, the helicopter will take a picture of the surface with its color camera and collect temperature data from sensors placed throughout the rotorcraft. Ingenuity’s engineers and Mars scientists believe such long-term data collection could not only benefit future designers of aircraft and other vehicles for the Red Planet, but also provide a long-term perspective on Martian weather patterns and dust movement.
During this final gathering, the team received a farewell message from Ingenuity featuring the names of people who worked on the mission. Mission controllers at JPL sent the message to Perseverance the day before, which handed it off to Ingenuity so that it could transmit the farewell back to Earth.
Decades of Room
If a critical electrical component on Ingenuity were to fail in the future, causing data collection to stop, or if the helicopter eventually loses power because of dust accumulation on its solar panel, whatever information Ingenuity has collected will remain stored on board. The team has calculated Ingenuity’s memory could potentially hold about 20 years’ worth of daily data.
“Whenever humanity revisits Valinor Hills — either with a rover, a new aircraft, or future astronauts — Ingenuity will be waiting with her last gift of data, a final testament to the reason we dare mighty things,” said Ingenuity’s project manager, Teddy Tzanetos of JPL. “Thank you, Ingenuity, for inspiring a small group of people to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds at the frontiers of space.”
Tzanetos and other Ingenuity alumni are currently researching how future Mars helicopters — including the Mars Science Helicopter concept — could benefit explorations of the Red Planet and beyond.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-ingenuity-mars-helicopter-team-says-goodbye-for-now
NASA tests walking robot on Mount Hood for space exploration with universities
Updated Wed, April 17th 2024 at 8:10 PM
MT. HOOD, Ore. (KATU) — Researchers from six universities, including Oregon State, have teamed up with NASA to test a walking robot on the terrain of Mount Hood.
They're trying to see how this robot would withstand the surface of the moon or even Mars.
NASA often uses rovers, but the hope with this four-legged robot is that it will be able to roam through the terrain of different planets in the future.
Another goal of this project is to create a partnership between human scientists and these four-legged robots.
Instead of using the robot as a tool, they are hoping to find an algorithm that lets the robot make some scientific decisions.
If not, the robot would try to decide what a human would do, to at least make one for a human to understand.
KATU spoke with a member of the project and the OSU team, Cristina Wilson, to ask why they chose Mount Hood.
“Mt. Hood is our lunar-like environment, so our moon has tons of craters and there is a lot of uncertainty right now about the structure of those craters, how much lunar ice is present. Mt. Hood has many variations of slopes and valleys that run down the mountain, it also has glacial ice.
Researchers plan to test it at White Sands National Park because of the sandy environment that mimics the Martian surface.
This summer, the teams will head back to Mt. Hood to test the robot once again.
https://ktvl.com/news/local/nasa-tests-walking-robot-on-mount-hood-for-space-exploration-with-universities-oregon-state-white-sands-national-park
Hubble Goes Hunting for Small Main Belt Asteroids
APR 18, 2024
Like boulders, rocks, and pebbles scattered across a landscape, asteroids come in a wide range of sizes. Cataloging asteroids in space is tricky because they are faint and they don't stop to be photographed as they zip along their orbits around the Sun.
Astronomers recently used a trove of archived images taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to visually snag a largely unseen population of smaller asteroids in their tracks. The treasure hunt required perusing 37,000 Hubble images spanning 19 years. The payoff was finding 1,701 asteroid trails, with 1,031 of the asteroids previously uncatalogued. About 400 of these uncatalogued asteroids are below 1 kilometer in size.
Volunteers from around the world known as "citizen scientists" contributed to the identification of this asteroid bounty. Professional scientists combined the volunteers' efforts with machine learning algorithm to identify the asteroids. It represents a new approach to finding asteroids in astronomical archives spanning decades, which may be effectively applied to other datasets, say the researchers.
"We are getting deeper into seeing the smaller population of main belt asteroids. We were surprised with seeing such a large number of candidate objects," said lead author Pablo García Martín of the Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain. "There was some hint of this population existing, but now we are confirming it with a random asteroid population sample obtained using the whole Hubble archive. This is important for providing insights into the evolutionary models of our solar system."
The large, random sample offers new insights into the formation and evolution of the asteroid belt. Finding a lot of small asteroids favors the idea that they are fragments of larger asteroids that have collided and broken apart, like smashed pottery. This is a grinding-down process spanning billions of years.
An alternative theory for the existence of smaller fragments is that they formed that way billions of years ago. But there is no conceivable mechanism that would keep them from snowballing up to larger sizes as they agglomerated dust from the planet-forming circumstellar disk around our Sun. "Collisions would have a certain signature that we can use to test the current main belt population," said co-author Bruno Merín of the European Space Astronomy Centre, in Madrid, Spain .
Because of Hubble's fast orbit around the Earth, it can capture wandering asteroids through their telltale trails in the Hubble exposures. As viewed from an Earth-based telescope, an asteroid leaves a streak across the picture. Asteroids "photobomb" Hubble exposures by appearing as unmistakable, curved trails in Hubble photographs.
As Hubble moves around the Earth, it changes its point of view while observing an asteroid, which also moves along its own orbit. By knowing the position of Hubble during the observation and measuring the curvature of the streaks, scientists can determine the distances to the asteroids and estimate the shapes of their orbits.
The asteroids snagged mostly dwell in the main belt, which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Their brightness is measured by Hubble's sensitive cameras. And comparing their brightness to their distance allows for a size estimate. The faintest asteroids in the survey are roughly one forty-millionth the brightness of the faintest star that can be seen by the human eye.
"Asteroid positions change with time, and therefore you cannot find them just by entering coordinates, because at different times, they might not be there," said Merín. "As astronomers we don't have time to go looking through all the asteroid images. So we got the idea to collaborate with over 10,000 citizen-science volunteers to peruse the huge Hubble archives."
In 2019 an international group of astronomers launched the Hubble Asteroid Hunter, a citizen-science project to identify asteroids in archival Hubble data. The initiative was developed by researchers and engineers at the European Science and Technology Centre (ESTEC) and the European Space Astronomy Centre's science data center (ESDC), in collaboration with the Zooniverse platform, the world's largest and most popular citizen-science platform, and Google.
A total of 11,482 citizen-science volunteers, who provided nearly 2 million identifications, were then given a training set for an automated algorithm to identify asteroids based on artificial intelligence. This pioneering approach may be effectively applied to other datasets.
The project will next explore the streaks of previously unknown asteroids to characterize their orbits and study their properties, such as rotation periods.
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-goes-hunting-for-small-main-belt-asteroids/
SpaceX Starlink Mission
On Wednesday, April 17 at 5:26 p.m. ET, Falcon 9 launched 23 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
This was the 12th flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched Crew-5, GPS III Space Vehicle 06, Inmarsat I6-F2, CRS-28, Intelsat G-37, NG-20, and now six Starlink missions.
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=sl-6-51
NASA’s Near Space Network Enables PACE Climate Mission to ‘Phone Home’
APR 17, 2024
The PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) mission has delivered its first operational data back to researchers, a feat made possible in part by innovative, data-storing technology from NASA’s Near Space Network, which introduced two key enhancements for PACE and other upcoming science missions.
As a satellite orbits in space, its systems generate critical data about the spacecraft’s health, location, battery life, and more. All of this occurs while the mission’s science instruments capture images and data supporting the satellite’s overall objective.
This data is then encoded and sent back to Earth via radio waves through NASA’s Near Space Network and Deep Space Network — but not without challenges.
One challenge is extreme distances, where disruptions or delays are common. Satellite disruptions are similar to what internet users experience on Earth with buffering or faulty links. If a disruption occurs, Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking, or DTN, can safely store and forward the data once a path opens.
NASA’s Near Space Network integrated DTN into four new antennas and the PACE spacecraft to showcase the benefit this technology can have for science missions. The network, which supports communications for space-based mission within 1.2 million miles of Earth, is constantly enhancing its capabilities to support science and exploration missions.
“DTN is the future of space communications, providing robust protection of data that could be lost due to a disruption,” said Kevin Coggins, deputy associate administrator for NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program. “PACE is the first operational science mission to leverage DTN, and we are using it to transmit data to mission operators monitoring the batteries, orbit, and more. This information is critical to mission operations.”
PACE, a satellite located about 250 miles above Earth, is collecting data to help researchers better understand how the ocean and atmosphere exchange carbon dioxide, measure atmospheric variables associated with air quality and climate, and monitor ocean health by studying phytoplankton — tiny plants and algae.
While PACE is the first operational science user of DTN, demonstrations of the technology have been done previously on the International Space Station.
In addition to DTN, the Near Space Network worked with commercial partner, Kongsberg Satellite Services in Norway to integrate four new antennas into the network to support PACE.
These new antennas, in Fairbanks, Alaska; Wallops Island, Virginia; Punta Arenas, Chile; and Svalbard, Norway, allow missions to downlink terabytes of science data at once. Just as scientists and engineers constantly improve their instrument capabilities, NASA also advances its communications systems to enable missions near Earth and in deep space.
As PACE orbits Earth, it will downlink its science data 12 to 15 times a day to three of the network’s new antennas. Overall, the mission will send down 3.5 terabytes of science data each day.
Network capability techniques like DTN and the four new antennas are the latest enhancements to the Near Space Network’s catalog of services to support science missions, human spaceflight, and technology experiments.
“NASA’s Near Space Network now has unprecedented flexibility to get scientists and operations managers more of the precious information they need to ensure their mission’s success,” said Coggins.
In addition to these new capabilities, the network is also increasing the number of commercial antennas within its portfolio. In 2023, NASA issued the Near Space Network Services request for proposal to seek commercial providers for integration into the network’s expanding portfolio. With an increasing capacity, the network can support additional science missions and downlink opportunities.
https://www.nasa.gov/technology/space-comms/nasas-near-space-network-enables-pace-climate-mission-to-phone-home/
Russia launches new Angara A5 heavy-lift rocket on 4th orbital test mission
April 18, 2024
The Russian space agency Roscosmos conducted a successful orbital test launch of its new Angara A5 heavy-lift rocket, helping to open a new chapter of spaceflight for the nation.
The Angara A5 lifted off April 11 on its fourth orbital test launch, and its first from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia's far east. The 179-foot-tall (54.5 meters) rocket is produced entirely from Russian components and uses a more environmentally friendly fuel than the nation's previous heavy-lift rocket, the Proton-M.
"The rocket worked according to plan," Roscosmos said in a Telegram post after the launch. "This launch kicks off flight design tests of the Amur space rocket with Angara heavy-lift launch vehicles at Vostochny."
The launch came after a scrubbed attempt on April 9 and a delayed second attempt on April 10. This marks the fourth time Roscosmos has launched the Angara A5. Its first test flight took place in 2014, and its second in 2020.
In 2021, Russia's space agency launched the rocket on its third test mission, but it missed its intended orbit when its second stage experienced an anomaly.
The April 11 flight was a success, according to Roscosmos, which reported via Telegram that the Angara A5 successfully placed a cubesat developed by Avant Space into low Earth orbit.
"The creation of the Angara space rocket complex (KRK) is a task of special national importance," Roscosmos said, according to Reuters. "The commissioning of the Angara spacecraft will allow Russia to launch spacecraft of all types from its territory and provide our country with independent guaranteed access to space."
The experimental cubesat launched into orbit aboard the Angara A5, known as Gagarinets, will be used to verify a laser system that is designed to project images such as QR codes or advertisements in the night sky, according to Avant Space.
The company claims that a constellation of satellites orbiting around 300 to 372 miles (500 to 600 kilometers) high will be able to project images visible even in cities with high light pollution. These artificial sky sights will be visible to millions for up to three to five minutes, according to Avant Space.
https://www.space.com/russia-1st-post-soviet-rocket-angara-a5-fourth-test-launch
A 3D Printer Used By Microsoft, Ford, and NASA Is Now Commercially Available — Here's What It Can Do
APR 17, 2024
A3D printer already in use at Microsoft, Ford, and NASA is now commercially available — and it runs on some 3D printed parts itself.
Formlabs, a 3D printing company with a unicorn valuation of $2 billion, launched its first new printer in five years on Wednesday: the Form 4.
A Formlabs rep told Entrepreneur that the new printer can churn out up to 400 models every hour and that anyone can learn how to use the printer in 15 minutes. Formlabs CEO and co-founder Max Lobovsky positioned the printer as a leap ahead for "the entire 3D printing world" because of its accuracy and ease of use, which beta testers at major companies have verified.
The price tag? $4,500.
A Formlabs spokesperson confirmed to Entrepreneur that the company incorporated "several" 3D printed parts into the final design of the Form 4. These parts were 3D printed on a previous generation of Formlabs printers: the $2,500 Form 3+.
Formlabs put Form 4 to the test against the standard manufacturing process and found that the 3D printer produced more plastic goods in slightly less time — with no observable difference in the end.
The fast production time means that the printer could more easily expand the current use of 3D printing, taking the technology from prototypes and small parts to mass-produced sellable goods like toys and kitchenware that consumers could buy in stores one day.
Earlier generations of Form 4 contributed to new bottle designs at Unilever, customized toys from Hasbro, and parts sent to space.
At Ford, Form 4 is being used to produce manufacturing aids for cars. Dentists, meanwhile, are using it to create retainers for patients.
Mark Honschke, prototyping lead at Microsoft, said that Form 4 was Microsoft's "go-to" for engineering projects because of its output and speed.
Formlabs' major competitors are BigRep, Shapeways, and Markforged, according to CB Insights. BigRep collaborated with carmaker Audi to create a 3D-printed car seat and Shapeways secured major contracts in the automotive and transportation industries last year.
Startups have already begun using 3D printers in the real world to create everything from homes to shoes, with construction company Icon creating the world's largest community of 3D-printed homes in Texas.
Nike is using the technology to create prototypes of custom sneakers, the company confirmed last week.
Footwear startup Zellerfeld, which recently collaborated on a 3D-printed sneaker with Louis Vuitton, has made "no factory, no waste" 3D-printed shoes the core of its business.
The global 3D printing market size was $22 billion last year, according to Fortune Business Insights, and is expected to grow to $150 billion by 2032.
Entrepreneurs looking to start with 3D printing don't necessarily have to buy a high-performance model like Form 4 — though major companies, including consumer product firm OXO, have commended it on its performance. The New York Times tested the Bambu Lab X1 Carbon ($1,200), the Bambu Lab P1P ($700), and the Prusa MK4 ($1,100) and found that they were all able to print faster than expected.
The $169 Ender 3 was the most popular 3D printer sold on Amazon at the time of writing.
The Form 4 can be purchased through Formlabs starting Wednesday. Packages start at $4,500 and go up to $8,700.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/3d-printer-used-by-nasa-microsoft-now-available-to-public/472812
Nasa chief warns China is masking military presence in space with civilian programs
Wed 17 Apr 2024 20.22 EDT
The head of Nasa has warned of China bolstering its space capabilities by using civilian programs to mask military objectives, cautioning that Washington must remain vigilant.
“China has made extraordinary strides especially in the last 10 years, but they are very, very secretive,” Nasa administrator Bill Nelson told lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
“We believe that a lot of their so-called civilian space program is a military program. And I think, in effect, we are in a race,” Nelson added.
He said he hoped Beijing would “come to its senses and understand that civilian space is for peaceful uses”, but added: “We have not seen that demonstrated by China.”
Nelson’s comments came as he testified before the House appropriations committee on Nasa’s budget for 2025.
He said the US should land on the moon again before China does, as both nations pursue lunar missions. But he expressed concern that were Beijing to arrive first, it could say: “‘OK, this is our territory, you stay out.’”
Nelson previously said the US was “in a space race” with China and warned that China could eventually claim to “own” the moon’s resource-rich area.
In 2022, China’s space program put up an Earth-orbiting space station and has mounted several lunar orbiting and sample-retrieving missions.
Since then, the US has been planning to put astronauts back on the moon in 2026 with its Artemis III mission. China says it hopes to send humans to the moon by 2030.
Nelson said he was confident the US would not lose its “global edge” in space exploration.
“But you got to be realistic,” he said. “China has really thrown a lot of money at it and they’ve got a lot of room in their budget to grow.
“I think that we just better not let down our guard.”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/apr/18/nasa-warns-china-military-presence-in-space
https://www.spaceforce.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3745434/kendall-allvin-saltzman-continue-modernization-drumbeat-need-for-congress-to-ap/
Kendall, Allvin, Saltzman continue modernization drumbeat, need for Congress to approve budgets on time
April 17, 2024
Department of the Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and the top-ranking military leaders from the Air Force and Space Force told a House committee April 17 that adequately defending the nation against modern-day adversaries demands the services modernize quickly and that Congress deliver funding in a timely and predictable manner.
The dominant messages from Kendall, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin and Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman were nearly word-for-word identical to the views they expressed the day before to members of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a week earlier to a Senate Appropriations subcommittee.
“As you are aware, the six-month delay has had a real impact. That time cannot be recovered, but at least we can now move forward with our urgent modernization priorities,” Kendall told the House Armed Services Committee, referring to the current year’s budget being finalized last month instead of Oct. 1, 2023, when the fiscal year began.
“Time is my greatest concern – we are in a race for military technological superiority with a capable pacing challenge,” Kendall told lawmakers. “Our cushion is gone – we are out of time. As we have briefed the Committee at a classified level, the pacing threat moves steadily forward. Continued failure to provide on-time authorities and appropriations will leave the Air Force and Space Force inadequately prepared.”
But departing from his prepared remarks, Kendall also used Iran’s recent barrage of more than 300 ballistic missiles, drones and cruise missiles against Israel to vividly illustrate the stakes the United States, the Air Force and Space Force face today in competition with China.
“What Iran encountered was a highly contested environment. And what we face with China is a highly contested environment,” Kendall told the committee of the April 13 attack in which nearly every one of the weapons launched against Israel was intercepted by a coalition that included the United States.
“What I’m dedicated to – and what we’re all dedicated to here – is ensuring that the U.S. never has a result like Iran had in its attempt to attack Israel,” Kendall said. “That’s what’s driving a lot of what we’re doing and why it’s so important to move on from legacy systems that weren’t designed for that type of environment to ones that are designed for it and are capable of coping with that.”
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With that aside, the focus and priorities highlighted by Kendall, Allvin and Saltzman echoed the ones that have been voiced before. That the services must modernize to account for and meet China’s actions and its growing military and position the services to meet the challenge. The three leaders provided insight and analysis on the Department’s recently released $217.5 billion budget request for the 2025 fiscal year which begins October 1. They spoke about the trade-offs that were made and how the spending fits into the nation’s larger national security strategy and why having a new budget in place on time is critical.
“The simultaneous demands of strategic competition with an aggressive and increasingly capable (China) and persistent, acute threats from around the globe require the Air Force to maximize the readiness of today’s forces, while adapting our structures and processes to offer the best opportunity to prevail in an environment of enduring great power competition,” Allvin said, adding, “Time is not on our side.”
In describing the plans and needs for space, Saltzman was as clear and emphatic as he was in early congressional appearances. He also highlighted a new strategy the Space Force recently unveiled to better use commercial space firms to help the service achieve missions and develop new, more sophisticated equipment faster. Lawmakers offered general praise for the effort.
“Against a near-peer adversary, space superiority is the linchpin. Without it, we cannot deter conflict. Without it, we cannot provide vital effects. Without it, we cannot protect the joint force. Until we have built the infrastructure to achieve space superiority, the Space Force is a work in progress,” he said.
For space, Saltzman said, “Our budget request is designed to build, train and equip the forces we need to perform each activity, preserving freedom of action in space while deterring and denying adversarial objectives.”
As is typical, questions from lawmakers during the House hearing, which lasted nearly 2 ½ hours, were varied and diverse, touching on topics ranging from the utility of a three-legged nuclear deterrent to mission capable rates for the frontline F-35 fighter, to the analysis driving decisions to divest planes and platforms to changes in recruiting and retention. From the two hearings this week came questions about diversity and equality programs, the Space Force’s plans for space functions currently assigned within the Air National Guard, and more local concerns such as plans for bases in Michigan and Nebraska.
Kendall said the nuclear triad of land based ballistic missiles, submarine launched missiles and, finally, weapons attached to aircraft remains a valid approach. That system, he said, ensures the U.S. retains the ability to respond if needed and that certainty underwrites nuclear deterrence that has been successful for generations.
In response to repeated questions about Space Force’s preference to transition Guardsmen to part-time Guardian positions within the Space Force in place of creating a Space National Guard, Kendall said the vigorous debate was out of proportion to the actual effect since only an estimated 600 personnel would be affected.
Additionally, he said that the personnel would operate much like they would if in the National Guard and that using a new law approved last year is more effective and efficient.
“It’s a shame this has become politicized,” Kendall said, noting that the law Congress approved last year gives Space Force flexibility in managing part time Guardians while avoiding additional bureaucracy and overhead.
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The original was posted yesterday, I resized it