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NASA scholarships open for applications
23/09/2024
The New Zealand Space Agency is calling for applications from post-graduate students interested in working on NASA projects in the US next year.
Deputy Head of the New Zealand Space Agency, Andrew Johnson said the New Zealand Space Scholarship programme offers students the opportunity to intern and work on space-related projects guided by NASA mentors and bring that experience back to New Zealand.
“Previous interns have gained hands-on experience in their fields of study and access to NASA’s advanced research facilities,” said Mr Johnson.
“It’s an invaluable experience for these students and the skills, knowledge and connections they bring home will help to strengthen and grow our science and space sectors.
“The New Zealand Space Scholarship programme is one way the government is helping to foster talented people working in space-related fields.”
The New Zealand Space Agency is looking for applications from post-graduate students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects.
Successful applicants will then be considered by NASA for 10 to 13-week internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2025.
Each successful intern will be supported by the New Zealand Space Scholarship which will cover return airfares to the United States and accommodation costs, plus an allowance for living expenses.
New Zealand has supported more than 20 students to undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or the Jet Propulsion Laboratory since 2018 through the New Zealand Space Scholarship programme.
Apply now on the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) online job application portal. Applications close on 27 October.
https://insidegovernment.co.nz/nasa-scholarships-open-for-applications/
https://www.mbie.govt.nz/science-and-technology/space/nasa-internships
NASA Astronaut Tracy C. Dyson, Crewmates Return from Space Station
Sep 23, 2024
NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson completed a six-month research mission aboard the International Space Station on Monday, returning to Earth with Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub.
The trio departed the space station aboard the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft at 4:36 a.m. EDT Monday, Sept. 23, making a safe, parachute-assisted landing at 7:59 a.m. (4:59 p.m. Kazakhstan time), southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan.
While aboard the orbiting laboratory, Dyson conducted multiple scientific and technology activities including the operation of a 3D bioprinter to print cardiac tissue samples, which could advance technology for creating replacement organs and tissues for transplants on Earth.
Dyson also participated in the crystallization of model proteins to evaluate the performance of hardware that could be used for pharmaceutical production and ran a program that used student-designed software to control the station’s free-flying robots, inspiring the next generation of innovators.
Dyson launched on March 23 and arrived at the station March 25 alongside Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus.
Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya were aboard the station for 12 days before returning home with NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara on April 6.
Spanning 184 days in space, Dyson’s third spaceflight covered 2,944 orbits of the Earth and a journey of 78 million miles as an Expedition 70/71 flight engineer.
Dyson also conducted one spacewalk of 31 minutes, bringing her career total to 23 hours, 20 minutes on four spacewalks.
Kononenko and Chub, who launched with O’Hara to the station on the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft last September, spent 374 days in space on a trip of 158.6 million miles, spanning 5,984 orbits.
Kononenko completed his fifth flight into space, accruing a record of 1,111 days in orbit, and Chub completed his first spaceflight.
Following post-landing medical checks, the crew will return to the recovery staging city in Karaganda, Kazakhstan.
Dyson will then board a NASA plane bound for the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-astronaut-tracy-c-dyson-crewmates-return-from-space-station/
Delaware’s Tidal Wetlands
September 23, 2024
In the low-lying reaches of Delaware, the land breathes with the ebb and flow of the tide. These tides support the marshes (tidal wetlands) lining much of Delaware Bay.
Marshes are one of several wetland types that together cover about one-quarter of Delaware—the second-smallest U.S. state.
These semi-aquatic ecosystems, which provide habitat for plants and animals, improve water quality, and help protect against flooding and erosion.
These images, acquired on September 3, 2024, with the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8, show a segment of the region’s coastal wetlands in Delaware and New Jersey.
In the false-color image (right), open water appears dark blue, and low-lying areas inundated with water (marsh) appear dark blue-green.
Farther inland, the vegetation in agricultural, forested, and urban areas appears bright green.
Tidal wetlands lie at the intersection of land and water, where the shore meets an ocean, bay, river, or stream.
They regularly flood and drain with the rise and fall of the tides.
When these images were acquired at about 11:40 a.m. local time (15:40 Universal Time), waters in the vicinity of the Leipsic River were approaching high tide.
The Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge, centered in the images at the top of this page and shown in detail in the image above, protects 25 square miles (65 square kilometers) along the Delaware coast.
About 20 square miles of that area is tidal salt marsh—one of the largest remaining expanses of the ecosystem in the mid-Atlantic, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
Salt marsh hay (Spartina patens) grows here, providing habitat for animals and shorebirds.
Bombay Hook is one in a series of refuges located along the Atlantic Flyway. In September, birdwatchers visiting the refuge can see late-migrating shorebirds and songbirds and the arrival of the season’s first Canada geese.
It’s also the time of year when tickseed sunflower, goldenrod, and Joe-Pye-weed are flowering.
Even protected tidal wetlands, however, can undergo marsh migration—a process in which rising sea levels drown a marsh and cause it to move inland. In 2021, researchers with NASA’s DEVELOP program used observations from several satellites to map Delaware’s marshes and project where these marshes are likely to migrate in the future.
They found that between 2010 and 2020, the state lost nearly 7 square miles of coastal marshes; however, some sites—especially toward the middle of the coastline—are suitable for future marsh migration.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/153349/delawares-tidal-wetlands
https://www.space.com/einstein-cross-largest-ever-seen
https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2024/09/18/magnifying-deep-space-through-the-carousel-lens/
The largest Einstein Cross ever discovered dwells among a rare 'carousel' of galaxies
September 23, 2024
Astronomers have discovered seven distant galaxies aligned with a galaxy cluster; together, they form one of the most unique configurations of galaxies ever seen.
This arrangement of warped and stretched galaxies contains the largest "Einstein cross," in reference to repeated views of the same galaxy in the same image due to consequences of general relativity — namely, gravitational lensing.
The newly discovered, strongly lensed galaxies are collectively referred to as the "Carousel Lens."
The galaxies appear to be stretched and swirled in the Carousel Lens because of the influence of a so-called "lensing galaxy cluster," which is located closer to Earth at 5 billion light-years away.
Ultimately, this discovery could help solve some of the most pressing mysteries of cosmology.
Chief among these mysteries are the natures of dark energy, the invisible force accelerating the expansion of the universe, and dark matter, the invisible stuff that makes up 80% of the matter in the cosmos.
The seven unique galaxies are located at distances ranging from 7.6 billion to 12 billion light-years away from Earth.
This is close to the observing limit of the 13.8 billion-year-old cosmos, meaning we couldn't see further that this area even with the most advanced telescopes.
That's because because this region of space is accelerating away from us too quickly.
In the Carousel Lens, a number of galaxies also appear in more than one location.
Of particular interest to astronomers, dwelling in the Carousel Lens is an Einstein Cross created from four repeated occurrences of galaxy number 4 (4a, 4b, 4c, and 4d in the image below.
"This is an amazingly lucky 'galactic line-up' — a chance alignment of multiple galaxies across a line-of-sight spanning most of the observable universe," team member David Schlegel, a senior scientist in Berkeley Lab's Physics Division, said in a statement.
"Finding one such alignment is a needle in the haystack. Finding all of these is like eight needles precisely lined up inside that haystack."
These aspects of this galactic arrangement show the intricacies of a mind-blowing physics phenomenon called gravitational lensing, first suggested by Albert Einstein in 1915.
Gravitational lensing is a concept that arose from Einstein's most revolutionary theory, general relativity. Also referred to as the "geometric theory of gravity," general relativity superseded Isaac Newton's theory of gravity.
It suggests that the presence of mass in the fabric of space and time, united as a 4-dimensional entity called "spacetime," causes that fabric to be "warped."
A commonly used analogy for this is the placement of balls of increasing mass on a stretched rubber sheet. In this 2D analog, a golf ball causes more curvature than a ping-pong ball, a bowling ball creates more curvature than a golf ball, and a cannonball creates quite extreme curvature.
In spacetime, gravity arises from this curvature, so the larger an object's "warp," the larger its gravitational influence. Thus, planets have stronger gravity than moons, stars have stronger gravity than planets, and black holes have stronger gravity than all three.
This doesn't just explain the orbits of bodies around others with greater masses, but it also tells us something really interesting about how light is impacted by a spacetime warp.
Though light usually travels in a straight line, the curvature of the very fabric of spacetime changes the definition of what a straight line actually is.
To picture that, simply imagine drawing a straight line on a sheet of paper and then picking up that paper and rolling it in different orientations.
This all means that when an object of tremendous mass, like a cluster of galaxies, sits between Earth and a background source of light, it acts as a gravitational lens, shifting that background object's apparent position in the sky.
But, light from a single object can take different paths around the lensing body. The closer to the concentration of mass, the more the light will be diverted.
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That means light from a single object can arrive at Earth and our telescopes at different times, amplifying the appearance of smearing, for instance.
The same object can even appear in multiple places in the same image, with these representations of images appearing in circular arrangements called Einstein Rings.
And an Einstein Ring can more specifically be categorized as an Einstein Cross if it fits certain criteria, as we see for the Carousel Lens.
In rare instances, a near-perfect configuration of objects causes a strong gravitational lens, and that is what data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Legacy Imaging Surveys and recent observations from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have revealed in the form of the Carousel Lens.
"Our team has been searching for strong lenses and modeling the most valuable systems," said Xiaosheng Huang, a team member and researcher at Berkeley Lab’s Supernova Cosmology Project, said in the statement.
"The Carousel Lens is an incredible alignment of seven galaxies in five groupings that line up nearly perfectly behind the foreground cluster lens.
As they appear through the lens, the multiple images of each of the background galaxies form approximately concentric circular patterns around the foreground lens, as in a carousel.
"It's an unprecedented discovery, and the computational model generated shows a highly promising prospect for measuring the properties of the cosmos, including those of dark matter and dark energy."
The strength of the Carousel Lens and the model created using the Perlmutter supercomputer at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) could help investigate dark energy and dark matter, sometimes collectively referred to as the "dark universe."
"This is an extremely unusual alignment, which by itself will provide a testbed for cosmological studies," Nathalie Palanque-Delabrouille, director of Berkeley Lab’s Physics Division, said in the statement.
"It also shows how the imaging done for DESI can be leveraged for other scientific applications such as investigating the mysteries of dark matter and the accelerating expansion of the universe, which is driven by dark energy."
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Astronomers catalog over 500 extremely powerful cosmic explosions
September 23, 2024
Astronomers have cataloged a stunning treasure trove of over 500 of the universe's most powerful explosions.
These so-called gamma-ray bursts, or GRBs, are so energetic that if just one of them were to occur within 1,000 light-years of Earth, it could destroy our atmosphere with catastrophic results for life on our planet.
Fortunately, however, the closest GRB in this new clutch of 535 observations is 77 million light-years away from Earth.
The new catalog was created by a global army of 50 astronomers led by Maria Giovanna Dainotti of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan using data from 455 telescopes across the Earth.
In terms of importance, the catalog could rival the Messier catalog of 110 deep sky objects created by French astronomer Charles Messier 250 years ago — a catalog still used by astronomers of all skill levels today.
"Our research enhances our understanding of these enigmatic cosmic explosions and showcases the collaborative effort across nations," Dainotti said in a statement.
"The result is a catalog akin to the one created by Messier 250 years ago, which classified deep-sky objects observable at that time."
Team member Alan Watson of the National Autonomous University of Mexico also emphasized the importance of the GRB catalog, hailing it as a "great resource" that could help "push the frontiers of our knowledge forward."
Lasting from a few milliseconds to several minutes, GRBs can be hundreds of times brighter than an average supernova, putting out more energy in mere seconds than the sun is capable of radiating over its lifetime of around 10 billion years.
Thus, when a GRB erupts, it briefly becomes the brightest source of electromagnetic radiation in the observable universe.
The first observation of a GRB came in the 1960s, but it wasn't until the 1970s when scientists were able to determine that these blasts of radiation were of cosmic origin.
Since then, scientists have used GRBs to study matter and physics that couldn't be replicated in labs here on Earth.
GRBs are divided into two main categories: long duration, lasting over two minutes and up to several hours, and short duration, lasting milliseconds to a couple of minutes.
Currently, astronomers think short-duration GRBs are caused when either two neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole collide and merge.
Long-duration GRBs are believed to be launched when massive stars collapse to birth a black hole, causing jets of particles to race away from this scene of devastation at around 99.9% the speed of light.
Using 64,813 observations collected over 26 years, with notable contributions from the Swift satellites, the RATIR camera and the Subaru Telescope, this team built the largest catalog of GRBs to date — replete with 534 entries.
This allowed them to monitor how light from GRBs reaches Earth, which resulted in some surprises. In particular, the researchers found that over a quarter of GRBs, about 28% of the lot, did not generally change as their light raced through the universe.
GRBs that erupted billions of years ago in the early universe appearing similar to those that rage today.
This is an odd discovery in a universe with objects and events that have been changing over its 13.8 billion-year history.
"This phenomenon could indicate a very peculiar mechanism for how these explosions occur, suggesting that the stars linked to GRBs are more primitive than those born more recently,"
Dainotti explained. "However, this hypothesis still needs more investigation."
Some of the GRBs did evolve in optical light, however, in a way that also lined up with their development in X-ray radiation. These subjects were lightly easier to explain.
"Specifically, we are observing an expanding plasma composed of electrons and positrons that cools over time, and like a hot iron rod radiating redder and redder light as it cools, we do see a transition of the emission mechanism," team member Bruce Gendre of the University of the Virgin Islands said in the statement.
"In this case, this mechanism may be linked to the magnetic energy that powers these phenomena."
The researchers' next step will be to turn to the wider astronomical community and build on this impressive GRB catalog.
To that end, they have made the data available via an app called the Gamma Ray Bursts Optical Afterglow Repository.
"Adopting a standardized format and units, potentially linked to the International Virtual Observatory Alliance protocols, will enhance the consistency and accessibility of the data in this field," Gendre said.
https://www.space.com/gamma-ray-burst-giant-catalog
https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/news/huge-gamma-ray-burst-collection-rivals-250-year-old-messier-catalogue
Massive radio survey reveals our universe's structure at the largest scales
September 23, 2024
When we look out into the universe with our unaided eyes, we are really only seeing a small chunk of what's actually there.
That's because there are parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that our visual faculties are not sensitive to.
Radiation is being emitted by all manner of cosmic phenomena across this spectrum, yet we're only able to physically see wavelengths within the visible light range without the help of external tools — but luckily, astronomers have access to telescopes that allow them to observe the universe across this continuum.
The South African MeerKAT radio telescope is one such observatory, allowing astronomers to probe the radio band emissions of stars, blackholes and galaxies in the surrounding universe.
Recently, an international team of astronomers from the MeerKAT Absorption Line Survey (MALS) used a vast catalog of radio sources captured by the MeerCAT radio telescope to make a measurement of a phenomenon called the "cosmic radio dipole."
Observing the radio sky can give astronomers insights into the large-scale structure of the universe, as radio emissions from far off galaxies can travel through space on relatively uninterrupted trajectories.
The MALS survey has produced an extremely sensitive catalog of close to a million radio sources in the sky because the team pointed the MeerKAT telescope array in 391 directions.
"The depth and the expanse of this continuum catalog holds a unique position among modern radio continuum surveys," Neeraj Gupta, an astronomer at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) who leads the MALS project, said in a statement.
The cosmic radio dipole is an effect generated by the motion of the solar system through space as it orbits the center of the Milky Way galaxy, and as the Milky Way gravitationally interacts with other galaxies.
The effect makes radio sources appear more numerous in the direction the solar system is traveling in, and less numerous in the opposite direction.
The magnitude of this effect should be directly related to the velocity of the solar system through space — however, the effect has been found to be much higher based on previous measurements of the solar system's motion through space.
This made astronomers question whether the dipole might not just be caused by the motion of the solar system through space, but rather by other radio sources (and therefore more galaxies) in the direction that the solar system is traveling.
However, the new dipole measurement based on the MALS survey is aligned with predictions based on current measurements of the solar system's movement through space.
Astronomers think this discrepancy may be related to the design of different surveys, where the MALS survey covered small patches of the sky to a very deep level.
By contrast, other radio surveys have measured wider patches of sky but on much shallower scales.
"Measuring the dipole is an extremely important test of cosmology, and can tell us whether our fundamental assumptions about the structure of the Universe are correct," Jonah Wagenveld, an astronomer at MPIfR and lead author of the paper that reported the findings, said in the statement.
As the new findings reveal, radio astronomy offers scientists novel ways of observing the universe at the largest scales, and therefore, opportunities to test our best cosmological theories against observational data.
A pre-print about these results can be viewed on the paper repository arXiv and a paper has been published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
https://www.space.com/universe-structure-meerkat-radio-survey
https://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/pressreleases/2024/10
Xi Jinping encourages space workers to further advance China's space exploration
23:24, 23-Sep-2024
Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Chang'e-6 mission scientists and engineers on Monday at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
Xi Jinping emphasized that space exploration has no limits.
He encouraged personnel in China's space industry to continue to work hard and accelerate progress in space endeavors.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2024-09-23/Xi-encourages-space-workers-to-further-advance-China-space-exploration-1x8AR9vGBry/p.html
Deep Blue Aerospace hop test suffers anomaly moments before landing
September 23, 2024
Chinese commercial rocket firm Deep Blue Aerospace conducted a first-stage rocket hop test Sunday, experiencing a partial failure during the final moments of landing.
Deep Blue Aerospace carried out the test at 1:40 a.m. Eastern (0540 UTC) Sept. 22 at the firm’s Ejin Banner Spaceport in Inner Mongolia using a Nebula-1 rocket first stage.
Footage of the vertical liftoff, vertical landing test shows the rocket ascending to a predetermined altitude before shutting off two of the three engines used for the 179-second flight.
Landing legs deployed as planned, and the stage hovered above its planned landing spot.
However an anomaly during the final engine shutdown phase led to a higher-than-expected landing altitude, leading to partial damage.
Despite the failure, Deep Blue Aerospace emphasized the positives in a statement, claiming that its Nebula-1 stage successfully completed 10 out of 11 major verification tasks outlined for the flight. The landing accuracy was stated to be around 0.5 meters.
It added that innovations in attitude control, trajectory optimization, and millimeter-precision guidance were successfully tested.
Notably, the test was the first high-altitude VTVL test in China using an orbital-class rocket stage. The company will now prepare for a new VTVL test scheduled for November.
The Nebula-1 uses nine Thunder-R kerosene-liquid oxygen engines on its first stage.
Three engines were used in Sunday’s VTVL test flight. It was fueled to one-fifth of its capacity for the flight.
The company conducted a successful kilometer-level VTVL test in May 2022. This is the first time however that the Thunder-R engine, which will power orbital launches, was used.
The firm says the test is a step towards a subsequent 100-kilometer-level recovery flight test and orbital launch and recovery test mission.
Deep Blue Aerospace also underlined that the test was strictly carried out in accordance with the safety management requirements of rocket tests, and was conducted in an uninhabited area in the Gobi Desert.
Chinese commercial launch firm Space Pioneer narrowly avoided disaster in June when its Tianlong-3 first stage dramatically took off during a static fire test near inhabited areas.
The orbital Nebula-1 is a two-stage, 3.35-meter-diameter rocket. It will be capable of carrying 2,000 kilograms to low Earth orbit (LEO) while an improved version will be able to lift 8,000 kilograms to LEO.
Deep Blue Aerospace is also working on a larger Nebula-2 rocket. That will be capable of sending 20,000 kilograms of payload to LEO.
The test follows recent successful VTVL tests from Chinese entities. Most recently commercial outfit Landspace conducted a 10-kilometer test with itS Zhuque-3, including an engine restart. State-owned SAST reached 12 kilometers in June.
The activity comes as China seeks reusable rocket capabilities and increased launch capacity.
The country needs to greatly increase its launch rate to construct planned low Earth orbit megaconstellations, namely Gouwang and G60/Thousand Sails.
Deep Blue Aerospace secured strategic funding in August, following prior funding raised in May. China’s central government last year designated commercial space as an important future industry.
A number of large funding rounds for commercial space firms have followed in 2024. Strong local government support for commercial space in China has also followed the central government announcement.
https://spacenews.com/deep-blue-aerospace-hop-test-suffers-anomaly-moments-before-landing/
France claims world’s first space-to-earth laser comms
September 23, 2024 at 10:40 AM
France’s Defense Innovation Agency (AID) together with a small French company, Cailabs, have succeeded in establishing a high-speed optical satellite communication between a nano-satellite in low orbit and a commercial optical ground station — a feat that they claim is a world first.
The French Defense Ministry said in a Sept. 10 statement that this project contributes to the objectives of the 2024-2030 military programming law, which provides for the country’s effort to up its military space game.
Satellite laser communications is an increasing area of interest for many governments as they seek to make the internet more resilient to attacks by bad actors, including those on subsea cables that currently carry most transatlantic internet traffic.
Further, laser communications both between satellites and between satellites and ground stations enable the transmission of larger amounts of data in shorter time frames.
Jean-Francois Morizur, co-founder and CEO of Cailabs, which developed the optical ground station, told Breaking Defense in a telephone interview that “others have already demonstrated the proof of concept that a laser link can be established between a satellite and a ground-station but we are proposing an actual product that exists and can be bought off-the-shelf.”
Morizur revealed that the company has “already sold seven, at least seven we’re allowed to talk about, to South Korea, Australia, Greece, France and the United States.”
He specified these ground stations had been bought both directly by the nations or else by companies which worked for governments.
The Cailabs ground station “is a white dome that measures around four metres in diameter with a large telescope that sticks out of it.”
He explained that the technology lies in the way the light is treated once it’s entered the telescope.
The laser communication terminal aboard the nano-satellite, made by Unseenlabs, another small French company, also is an off-the-shelf product.
These terminals “are sold by lots of companies and thanks to the US Space Development Agency, they are all required to be interoperable,” Morizur explained.
The Space Development Agency has developed standards for orbital laser communications it intends to use, but has published the standards in hopes of facilitating widespread use.
The French experiment was launched at the end of 2023 by AID with the launch of the Keraunos satellite and the aim of testing high-speed optical communications based on the innovative technology developed by Cailabs.
AID provided €5.5 million ($6.1 million) to fund the Keraunos project which also involved Unseenlabs, another startup based in Rennes, western France.
The team was able to establish a stable laser link over several minutes and thereby not only track the nano-satellite flying in low Earth orbit from the optical ground station, but also receive data sent from the satellite.
In a statement, the Defense Ministry explained that “the advantages of the optical link over the usual radio link are its speed, discretion and independence from regulations that coordinate the use of radio waves.
Even if this optical link can sometimes be perturbed by atmospheric turbulence, the Keraunos satellite is able to circumvent them in order to achieve optimum transmission quality.”
It adds that “the modern and agile architecture of Unseenlabs’ nano-satellites allows for the laser communication terminal to be integrated within the very short timespan imposed by the ‘New Space’ tempo.”
(“New Space” is a term referring to the growing ecosystem of private space firms kicking out innovative products at a rapid pace.)
The Defense Ministry says the successful outcome of the Keranos project “makes it possible to use space-based laser communications on mobile, land-based, naval or airborne platforms,” adding that “this system could be integrated into the Ministry of Defense’s future satellite systems.”
Jonathan Galic, co-founder and new technologies director at Unseenlabs, says in the ministerial statement that “this success reflects the capacity of Unseenlabs to rapidly put into orbit a perfectly functional, complex system.
The combination of the performances of (our) satellites with the optical innovations of Cailabs opens the way to faster and more secure communications.”
https://breakingdefense.com/2024/09/france-claims-worlds-first-space-to-earth-laser-comms/
>I am still refining the design for the new border wall.
China's astronauts conduct emergency drills and deploy payloads into space
September 23, 2024
The Shenzhou 18 crew — Ye Guangfu, Li Cong, and Li Guangsu — currently aboard the Tiangong space station recently went through a depressurization drill, as seen in new footage released by China's human spaceflight agency on Sept. 15.
The footage shows the three astronauts donning masks attached to air bottles before apparently seeking for the source of a simulated leak.
The trio, who have been aboard the Tiangong space station since late April, conducted a similar drill in July with a simulated debris strike and decompression event.
Life remains busy in orbit for China's astronauts with a range of drills, maintenance and experiments to carry out.
The Shenzhou 18 crew — Ye Guangfu, Li Cong, and Li Guangsu — currently aboard the Tiangong space station recently went through a depressurization drill, as seen in new footage released by China's human spaceflight agency on Sept. 15.
The footage shows the three astronauts donning masks attached to air bottles before apparently seeking for the source of a simulated leak.
The trio, who have been aboard the Tiangong space station since late April, conducted a similar drill in July with a simulated debris strike and decompression event.
The astronauts conduct system-wide pressure emergency drills to strengthen their emergency response capabilities and their ability to coordinate with teams on the ground.
The footage also shows a Tiangong external payload adapter during egress.
These adapters allow for experiments to be conducted in space, in addition to the payload racks inside Tiangong, which host experiments in areas including space materials science, fluid dynamics in microgravity and combustion.
Related to these experiments, the astronauts assessed a pre-cooling device for biological experiment samples.
The small refrigeration unit is used to protect samples that are returned to Earth.
Commander Ye Guangfu and his crewmates also went through eye pressure examinations, as well as neuromuscular stimulation, as part of regular steps to monitor and maintain their physical condition.
The crew also engaged in more mundane activities, including arranging equipment and supplies, garbage transfer and storage, in order to maintain a clean environment in the space station.
China completed the construction of the three-module Tiangong station in late 2022. It aims to keep the orbital outpost permanently occupied and running experiments for at least a decade.
The Shenzhou 18 crew are scheduled to live aboard the orbital outpost around November, when they will greet the next crew and get ready to depart for Earth.
https://www.space.com/china-astronauts-tiangong-space-station-emergency-drills-september-2024-video
https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Copernicus/Sentinel-1/Sentinel-1B_journeys_back_to_Earth
Sentinel-1B journeys back to Earth
23/09/2024
The Sentinel-1B satellite, the second satellite of the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission, completed its disposal process – which included lowering its orbit and passivating its systems to ensure re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere within 25 years.
This careful operation highlights the European Union’s and ESA’s commitment to space safety and sustainability and provides valuable experience for the disposal of current and future spacecraft.
Launched on 25 April 2016, the Sentinel-1B spacecraft joined Sentinel-1A to complete the Sentinel-1 constellation. For over five years, these two satellites collected the largest global, open dataset of radar data in the world.
The mission was the first to launch for Copernicus, the Earth observation component of the European Union’s space programme.
The ambitious Sentinel-1 mission raised the bar for spaceborne radar, providing continuous radar imaging for numerous Copernicus services and applications.
This includes ice mapping, iceberg tracking, glacier-velocity monitoring as well as monitoring ground deformation resulting from subsidence, earthquakes and volcanoes, water and soil management, as well as supporting humanitarian aid and disaster response efforts.
On 23 December 2021, Sentinel-1B suffered a failure in the platform unit that powered the Synthetic Aperture Radar, causing the payload to become inoperative.
After multiple attempts to recover the spacecraft, the mission was declared ended on 3 August 2022. Since then, the Sentinel-1 mission has solely relied on the Sentinel-1A satellite.
Meticulous planning
Preparations for Sentinel-1B’s disposal began in September 2022, right after the mission ended.
Building on their shared commitment to reducing space debris, a collaborative effort between experts from ESA, the European Commission, as well as industrial partners, led to a well-structured disposal plan that maximised the satellite's remaining potential.
The plan, based on ESA’s previous satellite disposal experiences, involved multiple stages that allowed the ESA team to monitor and adjust as needed, after which the reentry itself will be uncontrolled:
Orbit clear-up: Sentinel-1B’s orbit was lowered by a few kilometres to free up the orbit for the arrival of Sentinel-1C and Sentinel-1D satellites.
Manoeuvre testing: New manoeuvres were tested and validated to complement conventional ones, and lower altitude much further.
Active orbit lowering: The spacecraft was placed it in a final orbit, from which it will naturally decay and eventually burn up in the atmosphere.
Passivation: The spacecraft was passivated, to remove as much stored energy as possible to avoid accidental breakups, and all powered systems were actively shutdown.
Disposal operations for Sentinel-1B began in February 2023, as planned. For the first six months, the operations went smoothly but as the orbit lowering progressed the teams had to overcome multiple challenges to stay on track.
In April 2024, the final orbital altitude was reached, allowing for re-entry within 25 years. Electrical passivation took place on 12 September 2024, marking the end of the satellite’s operational life.
This careful operation helped gather useful knowledge about the spacecraft's capabilities and limitations, which will facilitate future Sentinel-1 operations for years to come.
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Last signal received
The final signal from the spacecraft was received on 12 September, just before the onboard transmitter, which communicates with ground control, was completely switched off.
The passivation process involved minimising the stored energy on the spacecraft – which included discharging its battery – and actively shutting down all powered systems where possible.
The spacecraft was also configured so that none of the deactivated systems could be automatically reactivated.
Following passivation, the spacecraft became what is known as a ‘ballistic’ object, meaning it is no longer controlled by itself or ground teams.
Due to its size and expected orientation, the spacecraft can be accurately tracked by the US and EU Space Object Tracking Networks, allowing for precise predictions of its orbital decay and trajectory.
Spacecraft operators (including ESA’s own Space Debris Office) keep track of such objects so as to safely perform avoidance manoeuvres with their satellites.
The spacecraft is expected to reenter Earth's atmosphere in 24 years, though this estimate carries some uncertainty due to factors like solar activity, which affects atmospheric drag.
Invaluable data
Sentinel-1B has generated a unique data collection that is being used daily by thousands of users across the world. The data remains available online on the Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem and will continue contributing to a better understanding of Earth.
The Sentinel-1C satellite, scheduled for launch at the end of 2024 on a Vega-C rocket, will replace the Sentinel-1B satellite, ensuring continuity of data for Sentinel services and applications.
Together with Sentinel-1D, it will extend the mission's capabilities and provide a long-term outlook for the next decade, until the next generation of Sentinel-1 satellites takes over.
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https://theconversation.com/graphene-at-20-still-no-sign-of-the-promised-space-elevator-but-heres-how-this-wonder-material-is-quietly-changing-the-world-239223
Graphene at 20: still no sign of the promised space elevator, but here’s how this wonder material is quietly changing the world
September 23, 2024 7:46am EDT
Twenty years ago this October, two physicists at the University of Manchester, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, published a groundbreaking paper on the “electric field effect in atomically thin carbon films”.
Their work described the extraordinary electronic properties of graphene, a crystalline form of carbon equivalent to a single layer of graphite, just one atom thick.
Around that time, I started my doctorate at the University of Surrey. Our team specialised in the electronic properties of carbon.
Carbon nanotubes were the latest craze, which I was happily following. One day, my professor encouraged a group of us to travel to London to attend a talk by a well-known science communicator from the University of Manchester. This was Andre Geim.
We were not disappointed. He was inspiring for us fresh-faced PhD students, incorporating talk of wacky Friday afternoon experiments with levitating frogs, before getting on to atomically thin carbon.
All the same, we were sceptical about this carbon concept. We couldn’t quite believe that a material effectively obtained from pencil lead with sticky tape was really what it claimed to be. But we were wrong.
The work was quickly copied and reproduced by scientists across the globe. New methods for making this material were devised. Incredible claims about its properties made it sound like something out of a Stan Lee comic.
Stronger than steel, highly flexible, super-slippery and impermeable to gases. A better electronic conductor than copper and a better thermal conductor than diamond, as well as practically invisible and displaying a host of exotic quantum properties.
Graphene was hailed as a revolutionary material, promising ultra-fast electronics, supercomputers and super-strong materials. More fantastical claims have included space elevators, solar sails, artificial retinas, even invisibility cloaks.
Just six years after their initial work, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, further fuelling the enthusiasm around this wonder stuff. Since then, hundreds of thousands of academic papers have been published on graphene and related materials.
But not everyone is on board. Skim through the comments section of any popular article on the material, and you’ll quickly find the sceptics.
We have endured decades of empty promises about the real-world impact of graphene, they complain. Where are the game-changing products to enrich our lives or save the world from climate change, they ask.
So has graphene been a resounding success or a damp squib? As is so often the case, the reality is somewhere in between.
In terms of public perception, it’s fair to say that graphene has been held to an impossible standard.
The popular media can certainly exaggerate science stories for clicks, but academics – including myself – are not immune from over-egging or speculating about their pet projects either.
I’d argue this can even be useful, helping to drive new technologies forward. Equally, though, there can be a backlash when progress looks disappointing.
Having said that, disruptive technologies such as cars, television or plastic all required decades of development. Graphene is still a newcomer in the grand scheme of things, so it’s far too early to reach any conclusions about its impact.
What has quietly occurred is a steady integration of graphene into numerous practical applications. Much of this is thanks to the Graphene Flagship, a major European research initiative coordinated by Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden.
This aims to bring graphene and related materials from academic research to real-world commercial applications, and more than 90 products have been developed over the past decade as a result.
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These include blended plastics for high-performance sports equipment, more durable racing tyres for bicycles, motorcycle helmets that better distribute impact forces, thermally conductive coatings for motorcycle components, and lubricants for reducing friction and wear between mechanical parts.
Graphene is finding its way into batteries and supercapacitors, enabling faster charging times and longer life spans.
Conductive graphene inks are now used to manufacture sensors, wireless tracking tags, heating elements, and electromagnetic shielding for protecting sensitive electronics.
Graphene is even used in headphones to improve the sound quality, and as a more efficient means of transmitting heat in air-conditioning units.
Graphene oxide products are being used for desalination, wastewater treatment and purification of drinking water.
Meanwhile, a range of graphene materials can be bought off the shelf for use in countless other products, and major corporations including SpaceX, Tesla, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony and Apple are all rumoured or known to be using them to develop new products.
The impact of graphene on materials science is undeniable. The impact on consumer products is tangible, but not as visible.
Once a material is embedded in a working product, there is little need to keep mentioning it, and proprietary concerns can make companies reluctant to get into details in any case.
Consumers can therefore be blissfully unaware that their car, mobile phone, or golf club contains graphene, and most probably don’t care, as long as it works.
As production methods improve and costs decrease, we can expect graphene to become ever more widely adopted. Economies of scale will make it more accessible, and the range of applications is likely to continue to expand.
Personally, after two decades, I still get excited when I try it out for something new in the lab. While I may be guilty of having contributed to the initial hype, I remain optimistic about graphene’s potential.
I’m still waiting for my ride on a space elevator, but in the meantime, I’ll take comfort in the fact that graphene is already helping to shape a better future – quietly and steadily.
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Fire training at Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station
Updated: Sep 23, 2024 / 09:14 AM MDT
Peterson Space Force Base said that from Monday, Sept. 23, to Tuesday, Sept. 24, fire training exercises will occur at Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station from 9 a.m. to noon.
During the exercises, Peterson Space Force Base said those living nearby may see increased activity on the installation, including visible smoke, fire, and the presence of emergency vehicles.
Peterson Space Force Base said these are controlled exercises and there is no cause for alarm, as significant safety controls are in place.
Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station may have temporary disruptions with traffic and Peterson recommends drivers plan accordingly.
Another fire exercise is planned for Friday, Oct. 4.
https://www.fox21news.com/news/peterson-space-force-base-fire-exercise/