Space News thread

[Takeovers]

A virtual flight over Mars in HD. It is computer generated but from real pictures, so not just a computer animation.



The pictures were taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment - HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

[Takeovers]

China is launching a lunar lander and rover today. Coverage on CCTV news will start 3 hours from now.



From Wikipedia

Chang'e 3 is a lunar exploration mission operated by China National Space Administration, incorporating a robotic lander and a rover. Chang'e 3 is scheduled for launch 1 December 2013 as part of the second phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program.[4][6][7] It will be China's first lunar rover, and the first spacecraft in 37 years to make a soft landing on the Moon, since the Soviet Luna 24 mission in 1976.[8] It is named after Chang'e, the goddess of the Moon in Chinese mythology, and is a follow-up to the Chang'e 1 and Chang'e 2 lunar orbiters. The lunar probe is also called the Yutu, or Jade Rabbit, a name selected in an online poll that comes from a Chinese myth about a white rabbit that lives on the Moon.[9]

[Takeovers]

Few minutes to go for launch. Total live coverage on CCTV9/news. They are quite confident. Not at all like the secrecy before.

[ENT]

Exciting times! Can't get CCTC9 here, but I'll catch up through other sources.

[Takeovers]

The chinese probe has just successfully entered lunar orbit.

LOI was completed at 09:47 UTC.

Lunar landing is planned at 15:22-15:35 UTC on December 14.

BTW, if your internet connection is up to it you should be able to get live streaming of CCTV 9.

http://english.cntv.cn/live/

[prawnograph]

Satellite debris stirs border alarm
10 Dec 2013
Troops from Thailand and Cambodia feared a military attack was underway on Monday morning after hearing an explosion over the disputed Thai-Cambodia border area near Preah Vihear temple.
Military command units from both sides promptly contacted each other to find out what happened.
It was later confirmed the explosion was caused by junk metal from a fallen satellite, not an artillery shell.
The Suranaree Task Force, which is overseeing the border, reported a blast in the sky and smoke above the ground to the north of tambon Sao Thong Chai, Kantharalak district, Si Sa Ket province.
That area was a battle zone between Thai and Cambodian troops in early 2011.
Authorities investigated and found metal shards in the area which were identified as parts of an old satellite that had fallen to Earth. No injuries were reported.

Picture from Post Today

[prawnograph]

^ is that what satellite debris looks like?

[Rainfall]

That must be the most absurd cover story of the year. A satellite can explode when it hits the upper atmosphere at high velocity, and heats up to 2,000 degrees. That's too far up to be heared on the ground. If it survives re-entry, the air resistance slows it down to 200 kph max and cools it down, it just can't explode anymore near the ground. I looked it up, there was no satellite forecast to fall down today. It's usually all over the news every time it happens.

[harrybarracuda]

That must be the most absurd cover story of the year. A satellite can explode when it hits the upper atmosphere at high velocity, and heats up to 2,000 degrees. That's too far up to be heared on the ground. If it survives re-entry, the air resistance slows it down to 200 kph max and cools it down, it just can't explode anymore near the ground. I looked it up, there was no satellite forecast to fall down today. It's usually all over the news every time it happens.

Well if the interweb says it's a UFO, it must be a UFO then right?

[prawnograph]

one that didn't make it


DISCOVERY: Members of a local militia collect a component of the Long March 4B rocket, which was loaded with a CBERS-3 satellite, after it was found in Sanxi village of Suichuan county, Jiangxi province, China.

11/12/2013

A Chinese-Brazilian satellite launched by China on Monday failed to reach its planned orbit and likely fell back to Earth, Brazil's Ministry of Science said.

The CBERS-3 satellite developed by China and Brazil was carried to space on Monday morning (local time) aboard a Long March 4B rocket from China's Taiyuan satellite launch centre, the Brazilian ministry said in a statement.

"There was a failure in the launch vehicle during flight and the satellite was not positioned in the right orbit. Preliminary evaluations suggest CBERS-3 has returned to Earth," it said.

[hazz]

A little reminder of our place in the universe

[harrybarracuda]

Coolant problem at International Space Station disrupting some systems - NASA
Published time: December 11, 2013 23:24
Edited time: December 12, 2013 01:17



Some systems have been powered down at the International Space Station after a pump module on one of the station’s two coolant loops “shut down when it reached pre-set temperature limits,” according to NASA.

NASA was forced Wednesday to reroute coolant systems when one of the station’s coolant loops, Loop-A, automatically shut down due to a temperature fluctuation. The ISS crew proceeded to move certain electrical systems over to the second loop, NASA reported.

The two coolant loops circulate ammonia to keep internal and external equipment cool.

“The flight control teams worked to get the cooling loop back up and running, and they suspect a flow control valve actually inside the pump itself might not be functioning correctly,” NASA said in a statement.

Complications with the International Space Station's (ISS) coolant system could lead to overly high - and low - temperatures for the ISS crew, though NASA said the crew was never at risk.

“At no time was the crew or the station itself in any danger,” NASA reported.

The space agency said that some non-critical systems have been “powered down” while teams analyze how the valve malfunctioned. External electrical equipment is still intact, according to Byerly.

The crew is “preparing to begin a normal sleep shift while experts on the ground collect more data and consider what troubleshooting activities may be necessary,” NASA said.

NASA hopes a software fix can repair the cooling valve. Otherwise, a spacewalk will be necessary to correct the problem.

A NASA spokesperson earlier told RIA Novosti that the space agency received warning signals, but that it ruled out any significant problems.

NASA says the “ISS can stay in current configuration” until engineers can determine a fix, though that could take a week or two.

Coolant problem at International Space Station disrupting some systems - NASA ? RT News

[Takeovers]

Repair would mean changing the whole pump assembly. There are 3 spares mounted outside the station that have been brought up when the Shuttle was still in operation.

[harrybarracuda]

This is going to send ENT over the edge....

The universe might be a hologram
Help us Obiwan
12 Dec 2013 09:15 | by Nick Farrell in Rome | Filed in Science

The universe might be a hologram -

For a while now number crunching physicists have been working on a theory that everything around us is just a hologram.

Now, two papers posted on the arXiv repository, Yoshifumi Hyakutake of Ibaraki University in Japan and his colleagues now provide, compelling evidence that the theory might be true.

In 1997, theoretical physicist Juan Maldacena came up with a model of the universe in which gravity arises from infinitesimally thin, vibrating strings and could be reinterpreted in terms of well-established physics. As you do.

He thought that a mathematically intricate world of strings, which exist in nine dimensions of space plus one of time, would be merely a hologram. Anything that was really happening took place in a flatter cosmos where there was no gravity and was projected onto this space where we see it all as being reality. It solved apparent inconsistencies between quantum physics and Einstein's theory of gravity. The problem is that it is difficult to prove.

Hyakutake looked at the internal energy of a black hole, the position of its event horizon, its entropy and other properties based on the predictions of string theory as well as the effects of so-called virtual particles that continuously pop into and out of existence.

In the other, he and a mate worked out the internal energy of the corresponding lower-dimensional cosmos with no gravity. The two computer calculations match.

Maldacena said that the numbers were right and an interesting way to test many ideas in quantum gravity and string theory.

Leonard Susskind, a theoretical physicist at Stanford University in California who was among the first theoreticians to explore the idea of holographic universes said that they have numerically confirmed that the thermodynamics of certain black holes can be reproduced from a lower-dimensional universe.

Nevertheless, says Maldacena, the numerical proof that these two seemingly disparate worlds are actually identical gives hope that the gravitational properties of our Universe can one day be explained by a simpler cosmos purely in terms of quantum theory.

The way we see it, it explains why two-dimensional structures such as Apple, reality television and PR people have such an impact in 3D space which is out of proportion to their mass. If three dimensional space is controlled by 2D space then it means that all of them have more authority than anything with depth.

[ENT]

This is going to send ENT over the edge..

The world ain't flat harry,.....

[harrybarracuda]

No it's a hologram ENT. That means 9/11 didn't happen!

*Gasp*

[ENT]

Neither do you exist in reality, your only an inverse and opposite reflection of being manifesting as a projected cyber-construct once more reflected by my mind, just a bad vibe.

[BaitongBoy]

^Hell, I thought he was a barracuda...

[Takeovers]

The chinese moon lander will soon touch down. Reporting on CCTV9 has started. Still time to chime in.

[Gerbil]

^ in space no one can hear you order a Chinese takeaway.

[Takeovers]

The probe has successfully landed, a very great success. Congratulations to China. That probe is a lander plus a rover that wil explore the area. This is much more than a propaganda exercise. There are very advanced scientific experiments on this flight. Among others an infrared telescope that will explore space from the moon and a radar on the rover that can get good data on the structures up to 100 m deep in the ground.

There was very extensive coverage on CCTV, quite interesting. A lot of talk about this mission and a lot of good comparison with probes sent by other countries.

A short report on USA space activities, especially the efforts by private commercial space.

They mentioned that on future missions they want to bring back material from the moon to eart. US-President Carter on a visit gave China 1 gramm of moon material and they have learned much from that gift.

On a sidenote. I still have CCTV running and they talk about a US-study about air pollution due to coal use in China. According to the study in 2011 caused a quarter of a million premature deaths. They comment that results depend on methods used for getting the estimates but that no doubt air pollution has a severe impact.

[Takeovers]

The rosetta probe has been in hibernation for 31 months to save energy while flying towards a comet. Now is the time to wake it up.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/17/te...html?hpt=hp_c1

The spacecraft is due to reactivate itself from an internal alarm clock on Monday but to celebrate the event the European Space Agency (ESA) is asking people to film themselves shouting "Wake up, Rosetta!" and then share their video clips on a dedicated Facebook page.

An artist's impression of the Rosetta probe at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. (Image courtesy of ESA)

Rosetta will be the first spacecraft to orbit a comet and to place a lander on the surface as it approaches and then swings around the sun.
ESA says the mission's objective is to help understand the origin and evolution of the solar system and investigate the role that comets may have played in seeding Earth with water.
Named after the Rosetta stone --- a block carved with ancient scripts that led to Egyptian hieroglyphs being deciphered -- the €1 billion ($1.36 billion) space mission was launched in 2004.
Since then, ESA says it has been around the sun five times as controllers line it up to meet comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in August this year. For the last 31 months it has been in hibernation for the coldest part of the journey that took it close to the orbit of Jupiter.

After mapping the comet's surface it will release the lander Philae in November and monitor changes as it gets closer to the sun.
ESA project scientist Matt Taylor said if the project is successful it will advance the knowledge about comets.
"It's the first time we've made a rendezvous with a comet -- that's never been done before -- and it's going to be the first time we've escorted a comet past its closest approach to the Sun," he told CNN.
"The cherry on the cake is that we also deploy the lander to probe the surface of the comet.
"With these firsts it will enable us to make a quantum leap in our understanding of comets -- where they come from, their consistencies.
"Previous missions have only flown past comets at high speed. Rosetta will get within 5km (3.1 miles) when we deploy the lander and will be in pace with the comet -- we will be really up close and personal with it."
Taylor explained that the spacecraft was designed to be put in hibernation because even with massive solar panels the size of a basketball court, Rosetta would not have enough power to complete its mission without this energy-saving strategy.
The lander is equipped with harpoons to attach itself to the comet, which is about 4km (2.5 miles) long, and then drill about 20cm (8 inches) into the surface to analyze the chemical components.
Often described as "dirty snowballs," comets are known to contain a lot of ice but scientists want to learn more about their exact composition.
Barry Kellett, an astronomer and research scientist at the UK's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, explained that when comets approach the sun, the ice melts and is turned into an ionized gas tail. The dust produces a separate, curving tail.
"Astronomers believe comets are made of pristine solar system material before the solar system was formed," he said. "They are the left over bits that never became a planet."
Some think that Earth may have received its water from comets, or even the chemicals that make up the building blocks of life on our planet.
"When Earth and Mars formed it would have been very hot so they would have formed dry," said Kellett. "And it was certainly very hot when Earth was hit by something that made the Moon. The only things we know that have a large amount of water on them are comets."
He said if Rosetta can establish the composition of this comet then "the question of where life came from might be better answered than before."
Rosetta's target comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is known as a short-period comet. It reappears every six years as its orbit brings it close to the Sun. Halley's comet has a period of about 76 years and is not due to return close enough to Earth to be visible until 2061. Others only return after thousands of years.

Now if we could ony get some comet core like this into an earth orbit or near the moon. With the materials in there we could make almost unlimited amounts of fuel for future interplanetary travel.

[Takeovers]

Opportunity rover 10 years on Mars.

10 years ago NASA sent two rovers to Mars, Spirit and Opportunity. Spitit was the first one to touch down. A quite safe location for landing was selected. After that was successful, they landed the second one in a different location, more risky but potentially more interesting. The design life time of both was 3 months, though scientists hoped for more. It was much more. Spirit ceased functioning after two wheels were defective and it could no longer turn its solar panels into the best position to survive the martian winter. However opportunity is still working, driving over the martian surface 10 years later, that's 40 times the design life time.

The picture is of a crater filled with sand dunes taken by one of the two rovers.


The latest discovery few days ago by Opportunity has scientists puzzled.



You see two photos of the same area on Mars taken by Opportunity. On the second photo there is a strangely shaped object that was not there a few days ago and scientists don't know how it got there. One theory says it is a pebble thrown up by a wheel of Opportunity and so deposited in that location. If that is true however it is weird that this stone shows material composition never before found on Mars. So if Opportunity did it by accident then why such a special stone? If not, where did it come from? The stone is now tested with the instruments of the rover.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/20/te...html?hpt=hp_c3

[Mr Lick]

Rosetta comet-chaser phones home





Rosetta, Europe's comet-chasing spacecraft, has woken from its slumber.

A signal confirming its alert status was received by controllers in Darmstadt, Germany, at 18:17 GMT.

Rosetta has spent the past 31 months in hibernation to conserve power as it arced beyond the orbit of Jupiter on a path that should take it to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in August.

Engineers will now finesse the probe's trajectory and prepare its instruments for the daring encounter.

One of the highlights of the mission will be the attempt to put a small robotic lander, Philae, on the surface of the 4.5km-wide comet. This will occur in November.

There were nail-biting moments in the Darmstadt control room as scientists waited for the signal to come through. Three quarters of the way through the hour-long window of opportunity, they got what they were waiting for.

Gerhard Schwehm, mission manager for Rosetta, said: "After 31 months in hibernation, what is 45 minutes to wait?"

Andrea Accomazzo, the spacecraft operations manager, said: "I think it was the longest hour of my life, but also one of the most rewarding."

Monday's message, when it arrived, was a simple one - just a spike on the screens here at the European Space Agency's operations centre.

It was picked up in California by a 70m dish belonging to the US space agency, and then routed to Germany.

The signal contained no spacecraft telemetry, but its mere receipt from 800 million km away confirmed to controllers that Rosetta's automated systems were operating as expected.

In the coming hours and days, the Darmstadt team will talk to Rosetta to establish the full status of its systems



It will be a slow process. The huge distances between the probe and Earth mean telecommands have a one-way travel time of 45 minutes.

Rosetta was put into hibernation in June 2011 because its trajectory through the Solar System was about to take it so far from the Sun that its solar panels would harvest minimal energy. The decision was therefore taken to put the spacecraft in a deep sleep.

Now that it is arcing back towards the Sun, more power is becoming available to operate the probe.

"From now until mid-March, we have planned virtually no activities on the spacecraft.

We can afford to run only some basic check-outs," explained Andrea Accomazzo.

"But from mid-March to the end of April, we will be switching on the instruments one by one. We'll check them out and in a few cases even update their software."

From May, Rosetta will begin firing its thrusters to begin zeroing in on Comet 67P.

Today, the separation is nine million km away. By mid-September, it will have been reduced to just 10km.

Launched back in 2004, Rosetta has taken a rather circuitous route out to its target.

This has involved making a number of flybys of the inner planets, using their gravity to pick up sufficient speed for the eventual encounter.

It has already delivered some fascinating science, particularly from the close passes it made to two asteroids - the rocks Steins, in 2008, and Lutetia, in 2010.

The plan is for Rosetta to escort the comet as it moves closer towards the Sun, monitoring the changes that take place on the body. The Philae lander will report changes that occur at the surface



Comets - giant "dirty snowballs", as some have called them - are believed to contain materials that have remained largely unchanged since the formation of the Solar System 4.6bn years ago.

Rosetta's data should act therefore as a kind of time machine, to enable researchers to study how our local space environment has changed over time.

"We will sample the physical and chemical composition of the comet," said Matt Taylor, Esa's Rosetta project scientist.

"This will give us knowledge on how and where the comet was formed, and about its subsequent journey through the evolution of the Solar System.

"We can connect that as well to the formation of the planets themselves. And, in addition, the elemental make-up of the comet can be considered 'star stuff' - it will provide us knowledge of the formation processes with the Sun itself."

Rosetta is being billed as the big space event of 2014, and it is clear from the general and social media reaction to Monday's wake-up that interest in the mission is considerable.

"Science in general catches the public's imagination," said Thomas Reiter, Esa's director of human spaceflight and operations.

"In general, we try to find answers to fundamental questions, such as where do we come from, what will be our destiny and will we have to stick to this planet?

"The knowledge we get from missions like Rosetta - which is now moving into a very interesting stage - gets us closer to answering those types of questions."

BBC News - Rosetta comet-chaser phones home

[harrybarracuda]

No. 3 sounds like it will be very difficult indeed.