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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
July 17, 2024
Villarrica Volcano Against the Sky
When Vulcan, the Roman god of fire, swings his blacksmith's hammer, the sky is lit on fire. A recent eruption of Chile's Villarrica volcano shows the delicate interplay between this fire actually glowing steam and ash from melted rock and the light from distant stars in our Milky Way galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds galaxies. In the featured timelapse video, the Earth rotates under the stars as Villarrica erupts. With about 1350 volcanoes, our planet Earth rivals Jupiter's moon Io as the most geologically active place in the Solar System. While both have magnificent beauty, the reasons for the existence of volcanoes on both worlds are different. Earth's volcanoes typically occur between slowly shifting outer shell plates, while Io's volcanoes are caused by gravitational flexing resulting from Jupiter's tidal gravitational pull.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?
NASA Announces Leadership Changes
JUL 16, 2024
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced Tuesday Dr. Kurt Vogel, associate administrator for the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD), is retiring from the agency.
NASA Langley Research Center Director Clayton Turner will become the acting associate administrator for STMD, and NASA Glenn Research Center Deputy Director Dawn Schaible will become acting Langley center director.
The changes are effective immediately, and for Turner and Schaible, these will be temporary assignments.
“I’d like to thank Dr. Vogel for his service at NASA and wish him well in the future,” said Nelson.
“Our Space Technology Mission Directorate and Langley Research Center are in good hands with Clayton and Dawn, and I look forward to continuing to work with them as we lead NASA into the future.”
Dr. Vogel has served as the head of STMD since January. Before leading STMD, Vogel served as director of space architectures and was chair of NASA’s Agency Cross-Directorate Federated Board.
Vogel has more than 30 years of U.S. government service, primarily in the Defense Department, as a technical leader, senior program manager, and chief technologist.
Turner has been Langley’s center director since September 2019 and has served the agency for more than 30 years.
He has held several roles at NASA Langley, including engineering director, associate center director, and deputy center director.
Throughout his NASA career, he has worked on many projects for the agency, including: the Earth Science Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation Project; the materials technology development Gas Permeable Polymer Materials Project; the Space Shuttle Program’s Return to Flight work; the flight test of the Ares 1-X rocket; the flight test of the Orion Launch Abort System; and the entry, descent, and landing segment of the Mars Science Laboratory.
At NASA Langley, Schaible will lead a diverse group of more than 3,000 civil servant and contractor scientists, researchers, engineers, and support staff, who work to advance aviation, expand understanding of Earth’s atmosphere, and develop technology for space exploration.
At NASA Glenn, Schaible has shared with the center director responsibility for planning, organizing, and managing the agency level programs and projects assigned to the center.
Before becoming Glenn’s deputy director in February 2023, Schaible was the director of engineering for Langley.
Prior to that, Schaible was appointed the NASA deputy chief engineer after serving as the manager of the Systems Engineering Office for the NASA Engineering and Safety Center.
She began her career with NASA at the Kennedy Space Center in 1987, where she held a number of lead engineering and management positions for the Space Shuttle and International Space Station Programs.
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-announces-leadership-changes/
Here’s How AI Is Changing NASA’s Mars Rover Science
JUL 16, 2024
Some scientists dream of exploring planets with “smart” spacecraft that know exactly what data to look for, where to find it, and how to analyze it.
Although making that dream a reality will take time, advances made with NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover offer promising steps in that direction.
For almost three years, the rover mission has been testing a form of artificial intelligence that seeks out minerals in the Red Planet’s rocks.
This marks the first time AI has been used on Mars to make autonomous decisions based on real-time analysis of rock composition.
The software supports PIXL (Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry), a spectrometer developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
By mapping the chemical composition of minerals across a rock’s surface, PIXL allows scientists to determine whether the rock formed in conditions that could have been supportive of microbial life in Mars’ ancient past.
Called “adaptive sampling,” the software autonomously positions the instrument close to a rock target, then looks at PIXL’s scans of the target to find minerals worth examining more deeply.
It’s all done in real time, without the rover talking to mission controllers back on Earth.
“We use PIXL’s AI to home in on key science,” said the instrument’s principal investigator, Abigail Allwood of JPL.
“Without it, you’d see a hint of something interesting in the data and then need to rescan the rock to study it more. This lets PIXL reach a conclusion without humans examining the data.”
Data from Perseverance’s instruments, including PIXL, helps scientists determine when to drill a core of rock and seal it in a titanium metal tube so that it, along with other high-priority samples, could be brought to Earth for further study as part of NASA’s Mars Sample Return campaign.
Adaptive sampling is not the only application of AI on Mars. About 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometers) from Perseverance is NASA’s Curiosity, which pioneered a form of AI that allows the rover to autonomously zap rocks with a laser based on their shape and color.
Studying the gas that burns off after each laser zap reveals a rock’s chemical composition. Perseverance features this same ability, as well as a more advanced form of AI that enables it to navigate without specific direction from Earth.
Both rovers still rely on dozens of engineers and scientists to plan each day’s set of hundreds of individual commands, but these digital smarts help both missions get more done in less time.
“The idea behind PIXL’s adaptive sampling is to help scientists find the needle within a haystack of data, freeing up time and energy for them to focus on other things,” said Peter Lawson, who led the implementation of adaptive sampling before retiring from JPL.
“Ultimately, it helps us gather the best science more quickly.”
AI assists PIXL in two ways. First, it positions the instrument just right once the instrument is in the vicinity of a rock target.
Located at the end of Perseverance’s robotic arm, the spectrometer sits on six tiny robotic legs, called a hexapod. PIXL’s camera repeatedly checks the distance between the instrument and a rock target to aid with positioning.
Temperature swings on Mars are large enough that Perseverance’s arm will expand or contract a microscopic amount, which can throw off PIXL’s aim. The hexapod automatically adjusts the instrument to get it exceptionally close without coming into contact with the rock.
“We have to make adjustments on the scale of micrometers to get the accuracy we need,” Allwood said. “It gets close enough to the rock to raise the hairs on the back of an engineer’s neck.”
Once PIXL is in position, another AI system gets the chance to shine. PIXL scans a postage-stamp-size area of a rock, firing an X-ray beam thousands of times to create a grid of microscopic dots.
Each dot reveals information about the chemical composition of the minerals present. Minerals are crucial to answering key questions about Mars.
Depending on the rock, scientists might be on the hunt for carbonates, which hide clues to how water may have formed the rock, or they may be looking for phosphates, which could have provided nutrients for microbes, if any were present in the Martian past.
There’s no way for scientists to know ahead of time which of the hundreds of X-ray zaps will turn up a particular mineral, but when the instrument finds certain minerals, it can automatically stop to gather more data — an action called a “long dwell.”
As the system improves through machine learning, the list of minerals on which PIXL can focus with a long dwell is growing.
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/mars-2020-perseverance/perseverance-rover/heres-how-ai-is-changing-nasas-mars-rover-science/
55 Years Ago: Apollo 11’s One Small Step, One Giant Leap
JUL 16, 2024
“Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed.” “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.” “Magnificent desolation.”
Three phrases that recall humanity’s first landing on and exploration of the lunar surface.
In July 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin completed humanity’s first landing on the Moon.
They fulfilled President John F. Kennedy’s national goal, set in May 1961, to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to the Earth before the end of the decade.
Scientists began examining the first Moon rocks two days after the Apollo 11 splashdown while the astronauts began a three-week postflight quarantine.
cont.
https://www.nasa.gov/history/55-years-ago-apollo-11s-one-small-step-one-giant-leap/
Emily Calandrelli will be first West Virginia woman to travel to space
JULY 16, 2024 12:05 PM
Emily Calandrelli, an engineer, will be the first woman from West Virginia to be an astronaut to travel to space. She’ll make the journey through a private flight company.
The West Virginia University alumni, Emmy-nominated television host and mother announced the news on Tuesday.
“I studied as an aerospace engineer for a decade, and it was always a dream to go to space,” said Calandrelli, who grew up in Morgantown. “The goal is to make this as much of a West Virginia flight as possible.”
She’ll join a list of West Virginia natives with connections to space travel, including NASA engineer Homer Hickam, NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson and ground-breaking pilot Chuck Yeager.
“I love that there is already a West Virginia space connection and that I can connect to and build on and shine a light on my home state,” Calandrelli said.
The launch on a yet-to-be-determined date will take place at a Blue Origin launch site in West Texas. The space travel company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, has successfully flown seven human spaceflight missions.
The spaceship, called New Shepard, flies six people at a time on a similar flight trajectory as Alan Shepard, the first American in space.
“I’ve always wanted to see the curvature of earth and the blackness of space,” Calandrelli said. “It’s such a unique perspective for a human to be able to see it with your eyes.”
Calandrelli’s flight to space will be made possible, in part, due to a partnership between Alys and Brad D. Smith’s Wing 2 Wing Foundation, which promotes accessible education and entrepreneurism. She is still raising money for the flight.
Brad Smith serves as president of Marshall University, and as part of their partnership, Calandrelli will promote the Marshall for All, Marshall Forever Program.
The program, a brainchild of Smith, allows students to graduate Marshall with a bachelor’s degree and relevant work experiences without student debt.
“Emily is a shining example of the power that access to education can provide those chasing their dreams and we’re proud to support her as the first West Virginian woman in space,” said Alys and Brad D. Smith in a statement.
“Throughout her life, Emily has faced challenges and overcome adversity to have a successful STEM career that ultimately led her to this dream of going to space; she embodies what is possible for all women and families in our great state when access to education is available.”
Calandrelli said she also hopes to partner with West Virginia University as a research partner for her trip.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the university. “I hope to also take the WVU flag to space,” she said.
Calandrelli, who now lives in California, will travel around West Virginia to speak with students about the experience.
“Being able to come back as a West Virginia girl and be like, ‘I’m just like you, and I’m doing this incredible thing.’ I hope it raises their ceiling for themselves,” she said.
Calandrelli also serves as a correspondent on Netflix’s “Bill Nye Saves the World” and has authored nine children’s science books.
https://westvirginiawatch.com/2024/07/16/emily-calandrelli-will-be-first-west-virginia-woman-to-travel-to-space/
Truck Receives Laser Signal from Space in First-of-Its-Kind Demonstration
Updated July 16, 2024
A German satellite transmitted a laser signal to a ground station mounted on a Jeep in a breakthrough test that could significantly alter space-to-Earth communication, speeding it up and avoiding data congestion.
TeraNet, a network of optical ground stations, received the signal from a laser communication payload aboard the OSIRISv1 satellite in low Earth orbit.
Two of TeraNet’s ground stations, including a custom-built Jeep truck designed with a built-in receiver, detected the signals.
Led by a team of researchers from the University of Western Australia, the demonstration hopes to establish communication between different space missions in low Earth orbit, as well as the Moon.
Since the first satellite launched to space in 1957, space agencies have relied on radio waves to communicate with ground stations on Earth.
That’s worked fine so far, but as more satellites crowd Earth’s orbit and the demand for data continues to grow, there is a bottleneck of signals coming from space.
Optical communication, or lasers, can help resolve that.
This type of communication system packs data into the oscillations of light waves in laser beams, encoding a message into an optical signal that is carried to a receiver through infrared beams that the human eye can’t see.
Compared to radio waves, near-infrared light packs data into significantly tighter waves, which allows for more data to be sent and received.
NASA has been experimenting with space lasers, transmitting and receiving signals to refine the technology.
In November 2023, the space agency’s Deep Space Optical Communications experiment beamed data encoded within a near-infrared laser from nearly 10 million miles in deep space (16 million kilometers) to the Hale Telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California.
In December 2023, the gold-capped laser transceiver attached to NASA’s asteroid probe Psyche beamed a 15-second video of an orange tabby cat named Taters chasing a laser pointer dot up and down a couch.
The private space industry is also getting in on the action. The space laser communications market was worth about $1.13 billion in 2022 and is expected to quadruple by 2031, according to estimates by Straits Research in Maharashtra, India.
Optical communication could transmit data at rates 10 to 100 times greater than the radio frequency systems used by spacecraft today, according to NASA.
It does become trickier over longer distances, as it requires extreme precision to point the laser beam.
Weather can also pose a challenge to laser communication, as clouds or rain can interfere with the signal.
The TeraNet team built a network of three ground stations spread across Western Australia to help overcome the weather issue, allowing to the satellite to send its data to the station under the clearest skies.
The truck used in the recent demonstration can drive to sites and capture the signal within 15 minutes of arriving at its destination.
The test paves the way for a 1,000-fold increase in communication bandwidth between space and Earth, according to UWA.
“This demonstration is the critical first step in establishing a next-generation space communications network across Western Australia,” Sascha Schediwy, associate professor at UWA, who led the team, said in a statement.
“The next steps include joining this network to other optical ground stations currently being developed in Australia and across the world.”
https://gizmodo.com/truck-receives-laser-signal-from-space-in-first-of-its-kind-demonstration-2000473603
US, Saudi Arabia sign new deal for civilian space cooperation and research
Updated: 16 July ,2024: 08:12 PM GST
The US and Saudi Arabia have signed a new agreement for civilian space cooperation and research, the State Department announced on Tuesday.
Known as the “Framework Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on Cooperation in Aeronautics and the Exploration and Use of Airspace and Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes,” the new deal will establish a legal framework to facilitate and strengthen collaboration between the two countries.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson signed on behalf of the United States, and CEO of the Saudi Space Agency Mohammed bin Saud Al-Tamimi signed on behalf of Saudi Arabia.
The agreement is also an acknowledgement of the Artemis Accords, which the US signed in October 2020 and Saudi Arabia signed in July 2022, which commits member nations to the transparent, safe, and responsible exploration of space.
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/united-states/2024/07/16/us-saudi-arabia-sign-new-deal-for-civilian-space-cooperation-and-research
Double trouble: Gaia hit by micrometeoroid and solar storm
17/07/2024
Launched in December 2013, ESA’s Gaia spacecraft is on a mission to map the locations and motions of more than a billion stars in the Milky Way with extreme precision.
But it’s not easy being a satellite: space is a dangerous place. In recent months, hyper-velocity space dust and the strongest solar storm in 20 years have threatened Gaia’s ability to carry out the precise measurements for which it is famous.
In April, a tiny particle smaller than a grain of sand struck Gaia at high speed. Known as a micrometeoroid, millions of these particles burn up in Earth’s atmosphere every day.
But Gaia is located 1.5 million km from Earth at the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point (L2). Out here, far from our planet’s protective atmosphere, Gaia is often struck by particles like this. Impacts are expected, and the spacecraft was designed to withstand them.
This object, however, struck Gaia at a very high speed and at just the wrong angle, damaging the spacecraft’s protective cover.
The impact created a little gap that allowed stray sunlight – around one billionth of the intensity of direct sunlight felt on Earth – to occasionally disrupt Gaia’s very sensitive sensors.
Gaia’s engineers were in the middle of dealing with this issue when they were faced with another problem.
The spacecraft’s ‘billion-pixel camera’ relies on a series of 106 charge coupled devices (CCDs) – sensors that convert light into electrical signals.
In May, the electronics controlling one of these CCDs failed – Gaia’s first CCD issue in more than 10 years in space.
Each sensor has a different role, and the affected sensor was vital for Gaia’s ability to confirm the detection of stars.
Without this sensor to validate its observations, Gaia began to register thousands of false detections.
The root cause for the electronics failure is not entirely clear. Gaia was designed to spend up to six years in space but has now survived almost twice as long under harsh conditions.
Around the time of failure, Gaia was hit by the same violent burst of energetic particles from the Sun that triggered spectacular auroral lightshows around the world.
The spacecraft was built to withstand radiation, but during the current period of high solar activity, it is being pushed to its limits.
It is possible that the storm was the final straw for this piece of the spacecraft’s aging hardware.
The Gaia teams at ESA’s ESOC operations centre, ESTEC technology centre and ESAC astronomy centre, together with experts from the spacecraft’s manufacturer, Airbus Defence and Space, and the payload experts of the Data Processing and Analysis Consortium, have worked together closely over the past few months to investigate, analyse and, ultimately, solve these problems.
“Gaia typically sends over 25 gigabytes of data to Earth every day, but this amount would be much, much higher if the spacecraft’s onboard software didn’t eliminate false star detections first."
"Both recent incidents disrupted this process. As a result, the spacecraft began generating a huge number of false detections that overwhelmed our systems,” explains Edmund Serpell, Gaia spacecraft operations engineer at ESOC.
“We cannot physically repair the spacecraft from 1.5 million km away. However, by carefully modifying the threshold at which Gaia’s software identifies a faint point of light as a star, we have been able to dramatically reduce the number of false detections generated by both the straylight and CCD issues.”
Thanks to the hard work and efficient collaboration of all the teams involved, Gaia was recently returned to routine operations.
In fact, the engineers took the opportunity of this unscheduled disturbance to refocus the optics of Gaia’s twin telescopes for the final time. As a result, Gaia is now producing some of the best quality data that it ever has.
https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Operations/Double_trouble_Gaia_hit_by_micrometeoroid_and_solar_storm