Space

humanity’s-most-distant-space-probe-jeopardized-by-computer-glitch

Humanity’s most distant space probe jeopardized by computer glitch

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An annotated image showing the various parts and instruments of NASA's Voyager spacecraft design.

Enlarge / An annotated image showing the various parts and instruments of NASA’s Voyager spacecraft design.

Voyager 1 is still alive out there, barreling into the cosmos more than 15 billion miles away. However, a computer problem has kept the mission’s loyal support team in Southern California from knowing much more about the status of one of NASA’s longest-lived spacecraft.

The computer glitch cropped up on November 14, and it affected Voyager 1’s ability to send back telemetry data, such as measurements from the spacecraft’s science instruments or basic engineering information about how the probe was doing. So, there’s no insight into key parameters regarding the craft’s propulsion, power, or control systems.

“It would be the biggest miracle if we get it back. We certainly haven’t given up,” said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in an interview with Ars. “There are other things we can try. But this is, by far, the most serious since I’ve been project manager.”

Dodd became the project manager for NASA’s Voyager mission in 2010, overseeing a small cadre of engineers responsible for humanity’s exploration into interstellar space. Voyager 1 is the most distant spacecraft ever, speeding away from the Sun at 38,000 mph (17 kilometers per second).

Voyager 2, which launched 16 days before Voyager 1 in 1977, isn’t quite as far away. It took a more leisurely route through the Solar System, flying past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, while Voyager 1 picked up speed during an encounter with Saturn to overtake its sister spacecraft.

For the last couple of decades, NASA has devoted Voyager’s instruments to studying cosmic rays, the magnetic field, and the plasma environment in interstellar space. They’re not taking pictures anymore. Both probes have traveled beyond the heliopause, where the flow of particles emanating from the Sun runs into the interstellar medium.

There are no other operational spacecraft currently exploring interstellar space. NASA’s New Horizons probe, which flew past Pluto in 2015, is on track to reach interstellar space in the 2040s.

State-of-the-art 50 years ago

The latest problem with Voyager 1 lies in the probe’s Flight Data Subsystem (FDS), one of three computers on the spacecraft working alongside a command and control central computer and another device overseeing attitude control and pointing.

The FDS is responsible for collecting science and engineering data from the spacecraft’s network of sensors and then combining the information into a single data package in binary code—a series of ones and zeros. A separate component called the Telemetry Modulation Unit actually sends the data package back to Earth through Voyager’s 12-foot (3.7-meter) dish antenna.

In November, the data packages transmitted by Voyager 1 manifested a repeating pattern of ones and zeros as if it were stuck, according to NASA. Dodd said engineers at JPL have spent the better part of three months trying to diagnose the cause of the problem. She said the engineering team is “99.9 percent sure” the problem originated in the FDS, which appears to be having trouble “frame syncing” data.

A scanned 1970s-era photo of the Flight Data Subsystem computer aboard NASA's Voyager spacecraft.

Enlarge / A scanned 1970s-era photo of the Flight Data Subsystem computer aboard NASA’s Voyager spacecraft.

So far, the ground team believes the most likely explanation for the problem is a bit of corrupted memory in the FDS. However, because of the computer hangup, engineers lack detailed data from Voyager 1 that might lead them to the root of the issue. “It’s likely somewhere in the FDS memory,” Dodd said. “A bit got flipped or corrupted. But without the telemetry, we can’t see where that FDS memory corruption is.”

When it was developed five decades ago, Voyager’s Flight Data Subsystem was an innovation in computing. It was the first computer on a spacecraft to make use of volatile memory. Each Voyager spacecraft launched with two FDS computers, but Voyager 1’s backup FDS failed in 1981, according to Dodd.

The only signal Voyager 1’s Earthbound engineers have received since November is a carrier tone, which basically tells the team the spacecraft is still alive. There’s no indication of any other major problems. Changes in the carrier signal’s modulation indicate Voyager 1 is receiving commands uplinked from Earth.

“Unfortunately, we haven’t cracked the nut yet, or solved the problem, or gotten any telemetry back,” Dodd said.

Humanity’s most distant space probe jeopardized by computer glitch Read More »

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Virgin Galactic and the FAA are investigating a dropped pin on last spaceflight

Science, Space, Virgin Galactic, vss unity / /

Rapid Unscheduled Dropped Pin —

“The FAA is overseeing the Virgin Galactic-led mishap investigation.”

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White Knight Two carries the first SpaceShipTwo during a glide test.

White Knight Two carries the first SpaceShipTwo during a glide test.

Virgin Galactic

Virgin Galactic reported an anomaly on its most recent flight, Galactic 06, which took place 12 days ago from a spaceport in New Mexico.

In a statement released Monday, the company said it discovered a dropped pin during a post-flight review of the mission, which carried two pilots and four passengers to an altitude of 55.1 miles (88.7 km).

This alignment pin, according to Virgin Galactic, helps ensure the VSS Unity spaceship is aligned to its carrier aircraft when mating the vehicles on the ground during pre-flight procedures. The company said the alignment pin and a shear pin fitting assembly performed as designed during the mated portion of the flight, and only the alignment pin detached after the spaceship was released from the mothership.

“During mated flight, as the vehicles climb towards release altitude, the alignment pin helps transfer drag and other forces from the spaceship to the shear pin fitting assembly and into the pylon and center wing of the mothership,” the statement said. “The shear pin fitting assembly remained both attached and intact on the mothership with no damage. While both parts play a role during mated flight, they do not support the spaceship’s weight, nor do they have an active function once the spaceship is released.”

At no time, the company said, did the detached pin pose a safety threat to the spacecraft or the carrier aircraft. Additionally, as the flight occurred in restricted air space, the dropped pin did not threaten people or property on the ground.

The FAA gets involved

Virgin Galactic said it reported the anomaly to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on January 31.

On Tuesday, the FAA confirmed that there was no public property or injuries that resulted from the mishap. “The FAA is overseeing the Virgin Galactic-led mishap investigation to ensure the company complies with its FAA-approved mishap investigation plan and other regulatory requirements,” the federal agency said in a statement.

Before VSS Unity can return to flight, the FAA must approve Virgin Galactic’s final report, including corrective actions to prevent a similar problem in the future.

The problem comes as Virgin Galactic plans to wind down its flight campaign with the VSS Unity and intends to move to its next-generation version of the spacecraft. These so-called “Delta-class” spaceships remain in development and are likely a couple of years away from making commercial flights.

VSS Unity has completed 11 spaceflights to date, reaching an impressive monthly cadence last year. However, the company is planning only one more mission before retiring the vehicle. This decision came as something of a surprise because the company’s president told Ars last August that the Unity airframe was capable of 500 to 1,000 flights.

This Galactic 07 mission, whose passengers and flight crew have yet to be announced, was scheduled for the second quarter of 2024. In its statement this week, Virgin Galactic said it remained committed to flying that mission.

Virgin Galactic and the FAA are investigating a dropped pin on last spaceflight Read More »

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Daily Telescope: A Wolf-Rayet star puts on a howling light show

daily telescope, Science, Space / /

Hungry like the wolf —

I’d like to see it go boom.

–

The Crescent Nebula.

Enlarge / The Crescent Nebula.

1Zach1

Welcome to the Daily Telescope. There is a little too much darkness in this world and not enough light, a little too much pseudoscience and not enough science. We’ll let other publications offer you a daily horoscope. At Ars Technica, we’re going to take a different route, finding inspiration from very real images of a universe that is filled with stars and wonder.

Good morning. It’s February 2, and today’s image concerns an emission nebula about 5,000 light-years away in the Cygnus constellation.

Discovered more than 230 years ago by William Herschel, astronomers believe the Crescent Nebula is formed by the combination of an energetic stellar wind from a Wolf-Rayet star at its core, colliding with slower-moving material ejected earlier in the star’s lifetime. Ultimately, this should all go supernova, which will be quite spectacular.

Will you or I be alive to see it? Probably not.

But in the meantime, we can enjoy the nebula for what it is. This photo was captured by Ars reader 1Zach1 with an Astro-Tech AT80ED Refractor telescope. It was the product of 11 hours of integration, or 228 exposures each lasting three minutes. It was taken in rural southwestern Washington.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Source: 1Zach1

Do you want to submit a photo for the Daily Telescope? Reach out and say hello.

Daily Telescope: A Wolf-Rayet star puts on a howling light show Read More »

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Why interstellar objects like ‘Oumuamua and Borisov may hold clues to exoplanets

‘Oumuamua, Borisov, exoplanets, Science, Space, syndication / /

celestial nomads —

Two celestial interlopers in Solar System have scientists eagerly anticipating more.

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The first interstellar interloper detected passing through the Solar System, 1l/‘Oumuamua, came within 24 million miles of the Sun in 2017

Enlarge / The first interstellar interloper detected passing through the Solar System, 1l/‘Oumuamua, came within 24 million miles of the Sun in 2017. It’s difficult to know exactly what ‘Oumuamua looked like, but it was probably oddly shaped and elongated, as depicted in this illustration.

On October 17 and 18, 2017, an unusual object sped across the field of view of a large telescope perched near the summit of a volcano on the Hawaiian island of Maui. The Pan-STARRS1 telescope was designed to survey the sky for transient events, like asteroid or comet flybys. But this was different: The object was not gravitationally bound to the Sun or to any other celestial body. It had arrived from somewhere else.

The mysterious object was the first visitor from interstellar space observed passing through the Solar System. Astronomers named it 1I/‘Oumuamua, borrowing a Hawaiian word that roughly translates to “messenger from afar arriving first.” Two years later, in August 2019, amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov discovered the only other known interstellar interloper, now called 2I/Borisov, using a self-built telescope at the MARGO observatory in Nauchnij, Crimea.

While typical asteroids and comets in the Solar System orbit the Sun, ‘Oumuamua and Borisov are celestial nomads, spending most of their time wandering interstellar space. The existence of such interlopers in the Solar System had been hypothesized, but scientists expected them to be rare. “I never thought we would see one,” says astrophysicist Susanne Pfalzner of the Jülich Supercomputing Center in Germany. At least not in her lifetime.

With these two discoveries, scientists now suspect that interstellar interlopers are much more common. Right now, within the orbit of Neptune alone, there could be around 10,000 ‘Oumuamua-size interstellar objects, estimates planetary scientist David Jewitt of UCLA, coauthor of an overview of the current understanding of interstellar interlopers in the 2023 Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Researchers are busy trying to answer basic questions about these alien objects, including where they come from and how they end up wandering the galaxy. Interlopers could also provide a new way to probe features of distant planetary systems.

But first, astronomers need to find more of them.

“We’re a little behind at the moment,” Jewitt says. “But we expect to see more.”

2I/Borisov appears as a fuzzy blue dot in front of a distant spiral galaxy (left) in this November 2019 image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope when the object was approximately 200 million miles from Earth.

Enlarge / 2I/Borisov appears as a fuzzy blue dot in front of a distant spiral galaxy (left) in this November 2019 image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope when the object was approximately 200 million miles from Earth.

Alien origins

At least since the beginning of the 18th century, astronomers have considered the possibility that interstellar objects exist. More recently, computer models have shown that the Solar System sent its own population of smaller bodies into the voids of interstellar space long ago due to gravitational interactions with the giant planets.

Scientists expected most interlopers to be exocomets composed of icy materials. Borisov fit this profile: It had a tail made of gases and dust created by ices that evaporated during its close passage to the Sun. This suggests that it originated in the outer region of a planetary system where temperatures were cold enough for gases like carbon monoxide to have frozen into its rocks. At some point, something tossed Borisov, roughly a kilometer across, out of its system.

One potential culprit is a stellar flyby. The gravity of a passing star can eject smaller bodies, known as planetesimals, from the outer reaches of a system, according to a recent study led by Pfalzner. A giant planet could also eject an object from the outer regions of a planetary system if an asteroid or comet gets close enough for the planet’s gravitational tug to speed up the smaller body enough for it to escape its star’s hold. Close approaches can also happen when planets migrate across their planetary systems, as Neptune is thought to have done in the early Solar System.

Why interstellar objects like ‘Oumuamua and Borisov may hold clues to exoplanets Read More »

rocket-report:-spacex-at-the-service-of-a-rival;-endeavour-goes-vertical

Rocket Report: SpaceX at the service of a rival; Endeavour goes vertical

Cygnus, human spaceflight, international space station, Iran, Northrop Grumman, rocket report, Space, Space shuttle, spacex, starship / /

Stacked —

The US military appears interested in owning and operating its own fleet of Starships.

–

Space shuttle<em> Endeavour</em>, seen here in protective wrapping, was mounted on an external tank and inert solid rocket boosters at the California Science Center.” src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/GFNrsMPWIAAWxNw-800×1000.jpeg”></img><figcaption> <p><a data-height=Enlarge / Space shuttle Endeavour, seen here in protective wrapping, was mounted on an external tank and inert solid rocket boosters at the California Science Center.

Welcome to Edition 6.29 of the Rocket Report! Right now, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is the only US launch vehicle offering crew or cargo service to the International Space Station. The previous version of Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket retired last year, forcing that company to sign a contract with SpaceX to launch its Cygnus supply ships to the ISS. And we’re still waiting on United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V (no fault of ULA) to begin launching astronauts on Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule to the ISS. Basically, it’s SpaceX or bust. It’s a good thing that the Falcon 9 has proven to be the most reliable rocket in history.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Virgin Galactic flies four passengers to the edge of space. Virgin Galactic conducted its first suborbital mission of 2024 on January 26 as the company prepares to end flights of its current spaceplane, Space News reports. The flight, called Galactic 06 by Virgin Galactic, carried four customers for the first time, along with its two pilots, on a suborbital hop over New Mexico aboard the VSS Unity rocket plane. Previous commercial flights had three customers on board, along with a Virgin Galactic astronaut trainer. The customers, which Virgin Galactic didn’t identify until after the flight, held US, Ukrainian, and Austrian citizenship.

Pending retirement … Virgin Galactic announced last year it would soon wind down flights of VSS Unity, citing the need to conserve its cash reserves for development of its next-generation Delta class of suborbital vehicles. Those future vehicles are intended to fly more frequently and at lower costs than Unity. After Galactic 06, Virgin Galactic said it will fly Unity again on Galactic 07 in the second quarter of the year with a researcher and private passengers. The company could fly Unity a final time later this year on the Galactic 08 mission. Since 2022, Virgin Galactic has been the only company offering commercial seats on suborbital spaceflights. The New Shepard rocket and spacecraft from competitor Blue Origin hasn’t flown people since a launch failure in September 2022. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Iran launches second rocket in eight days. Iran launched a trio of small satellites into low-Earth orbit on January 28, Al Jazeera reports. This launch used Iran’s Simorgh rocket, which made its first successful flight into orbit after a series of failures dating back to 2017. The two-stage, liquid-fueled Simorgh rocket deployed three satellites. The largest of the group, named Mehda, was designed to measure the launch environments on the Simorgh rocket and test its ability to deliver multiple satellites into orbit. Two smaller satellites will test narrowband communication and geopositioning technology, according to Iran’s state media.

Back to back … This was a flight of redemption for the Simorgh rocket, which is managed by the civilian-run Iranian Space Agency. While the Simorgh design has repeatedly faltered, the Iranian military’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has launched two new orbital-class rockets in recent years. The military’s Qased launch vehicle delivered small satellites into orbit on three successful flights in 2020, 2022, and 2023. Then, on January 20, the military’s newest rocket, named the Qaem 100, put a small remote-sensing payload into orbit. Eight days later, the Iranian Space Agency finally achieved success with the Simorgh rocket. Previously, Iranian satellite launches have been spaced apart by at least several months. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger’s space reporting is to sign up for his newsletter, we’ll collect his stories in your inbox.

Rocket Lab’s first launch of 2024. Rocket Lab was back in action on January 31, kicking off its launch year with a recovery Electron mission from New Zealand. This was its second return-to-flight mission following a mishap late last year, Spaceflight Now reports. Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket released four Space Situational Awareness (SSA) satellites into orbit for Spire Global and NorthStar Earth & Space. Peter Beck, Rocket Lab’s founder and CEO, said in a statement that the company has more missions on the books for 2024 than in any year before. Last year, Rocket Lab launched 10 flights of its light-class Electron launcher.

Another recovery … Around 17 minutes after liftoff, the Electron’s first-stage booster splashed down in the Pacific Ocean under parachute. A recovery vessel was stationed nearby downrange from the launch base at Mahia Peninsula, located on the North Island of New Zealand. Rocket Lab has ambitions of re-flying a first stage booster in its entirety. Last August, it demonstrated partial reuse with the re-flight of a Rutherford engine salvaged from a booster recovered on a prior mission. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

PLD Space wins government backing. PLD Space has won the second and final round of a Spanish government call to develop sovereign launch capabilities, European Spaceflight reports. Spain’s Center for Technological Development and Innovation announced on January 26 that it selected PLD Space, which is developing a small launch vehicle called Miura 5, to receive a 40.5-million euro loan from a government fund devoted to aiding the Spanish aerospace sector, with a particular emphasis on access to space. Last summer, the Spanish government selected PLD Space and Pangea Aerospace to each receive 1.5 million euros in a preliminary funding round to mature their designs. PLD Space won the second round of the loan competition.

Moving toward Miura 5 … “The technical decision in favor of PLD Space confirms that our technological development strategy is sound and is based on a solid business plan,” said Ezequiel Sanchez, PLD Space’s executive president. “Winning this public contract to create a strategic national capability reinforces our position as a leading company in securing Europe’s access to space.” Miura 5 will be capable of launching about a half-ton of payload mass into low-Earth orbit and is scheduled to make its debut launch from French Guiana in late 2025 or early 2026, followed by the start of commercial operations later in 2026. PLD Space will need to repay the loan through royalties over the first 10 years of the commercial operation of Miura 5. (submitted by Leika)

Rocket Report: SpaceX at the service of a rival; Endeavour goes vertical Read More »

starlab—with-half-the-volume-of-the-iss—will-fit-inside-starship’s-payload-bay

Starlab—with half the volume of the ISS—will fit inside Starship’s payload bay

commercial space stations, Science, Space, starlab, starship / /

It’s full of stars —

“Building and integrating in space is very expensive.”

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An artist's concept of the Starlab space station.

Enlarge / An artist’s concept of the Starlab space station.

Starlab LLC

The Starlab commercial space station will launch on SpaceX’s Starship rocket, officials said this week.

Starlab is a joint venture between the US-based Voyager Space and the European-based multinational aerospace corporation Airbus. The venture is building a large station with a habitable volume equivalent to half the pressurized volume of the International Space Station and will launch the new station no earlier than 2028.

“SpaceX’s history of success and reliability led our team to select Starship to orbit Starlab,” Dylan Taylor, chairman and CEO of Voyager Space, said in a statement. “SpaceX is the unmatched leader for high-cadence launches and we are proud Starlab will be launched to orbit in a single flight by Starship.”

Fitting in a big fairing

Starlab will have a diameter of about 26 feet (8 meters). It is perhaps not a coincidence that Starship’s payload bay can accommodate vehicles up to 26 feet across in its capacious fairing. However, in an interview, Marshall Smith, the chief technology officer of Voyager Space, said the company looked at a couple of launch options.

“We looked at multiple launches to get Starlab into orbit, and eventually gravitated toward single launch options,” he said. “It saves a lot of the cost of development. It saves a lot of the cost of integration. We can get it all built and checked out on the ground, and tested and launch it with payloads and other systems. One of the many lessons we learned from the International Space Station is that building and integrating in space is very expensive.”

With a single launch on a Starship, the Starlab module should be ready for human habitation almost immediately, Smith said.

It's hard to believe the interior of Starlab will ever be this clean in space.

Enlarge / It’s hard to believe the interior of Starlab will ever be this clean in space.

Starlab LLC

Starlab is one of several privately developed space stations vying to become a commercial replacement for the International Space Station, which NASA is likely to retire in 2030. Among the other contenders are Axiom Space, Blue Origin, and Vast Space. SpaceX may also configure a human-rated version of Starship as a temporary space station.

NASA has provided seed funding to some of these companies, including Voyager Space, to begin designing and developing their stations. NASA is expected to hold a second round of competition next year, when it will select one or more companies to proceed with building and testing their stations.

Finding customers

Each company is developing a space station that will serve both government customers—NASA wants to continue flying at least a handful of astronauts in low-Earth orbit for research purposes—as well as private customers. The challenge for Starlab and other commercial stations is developing a customer base beyond NASA to support the expense of flying and operating stations.

The challenge is a huge one: NASA spent more than $100 billion constructing the International Space Station and has a $3 billion annual budget for operations and transportation of people and supplies to the station. The agency is likely to fund commercial space stations at a level of about $1 billion a year, so these companies must build their facilities relatively quickly at low cost and then find a diverse base of customers to offset expenses.

Starlab may have an advantage in this regard with its co-ownership by Airbus. One of the big questions surrounding the end of the International Space Station is what happens to the European astronauts who fly there now. The European Space Agency will likely be reticent about funding missions to private space stations owned and operated by US companies. The involvement by Airbus, therefore, makes Starlab attractive to European nations as a destination.

Starlab—with half the volume of the ISS—will fit inside Starship’s payload bay Read More »

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Rocket Report: Iran reaches orbit; Chinese firm achieves impressive landing test

rocket report, Science, Space / /
First and second stages of Blue Origin's

Enlarge / First and second stages of Blue Origin’s “New Glenn” test vehicle.

Blue Origin

Welcome to Edition 6.28 of the Rocket Report! There’s a lot going on in the world of launch as always, but this week I want to take this space for a personal message. I have just announced the forthcoming publication of my second book, REENTRY, on the Falcon 9 rocket, Dragon spacecraft, and development of reusable launch. Full details here. I worked very hard to get the inside story.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Europe seeks to support small launch companies. The European Space Agency and European Commission have selected five launch companies to participate in a new program to provide flight opportunities for new technologies, a sign of a greater role the European Union intends to play in launch, Space News reports. The effort seeks to stimulate demand for European launch services by allowing companies to compete for missions in the European Union’s In-Orbit Demonstration and Validation technology program. Proposals for the program’s first phase are due to ESA at the end of February.

Getting a golden ticket … The agency expects to select up to three companies for initial contracts with a combined value of 75 million euros ($82 million) to begin design work on those vehicles. Four of the companies selected for the “Flight Ticket Initiative” are startups working on small launch vehicles: Isar Aerospace, Orbex, PLD Space, and Rocket Factory Augsburg. None of them has yet conducted an orbital launch, but they expect to do so within the next two years. The fifth company was Arianespace, which will offer rideshare launches on its Vega C and Ariane 6 rockets. (submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)

Iran successfully launches Qaem 100 rocket. Iran said Saturday it had conducted a successful satellite launch into its highest orbit yet, the latest for a program the West fears improves Tehran’s ballistic missiles, the Associated Press reports. The Iranian Soraya satellite was placed in an orbit at some 750 kilometers (460 miles) above the Earth’s surface with its three-stage Qaem 100 rocket, the state-run IRNA news agency said. It did not immediately acknowledge what the satellite did, though telecommunications minister Isa Zarepour described the launch as having a 50-kilogram (110-pound) payload.

Qaem’s first orbital flight … The United States has previously said Iran’s satellite launches defy a UN Security Council resolution and called on Tehran to undertake no activity involving ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. UN sanctions related to Iran’s ballistic missile program expired last October. Iran has always denied seeking nuclear weapons and says its space program, like its nuclear activities, is for purely civilian purposes. This was the third launch of the Qaem rocket, which can loft up to 80 kg to low-Earth orbit. A suborbital test flight in 2022 was successful, but the first orbital attempt last March failed. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger’s space reporting is to sign up for his newsletter, we’ll collect his stories in your inbox.

Chinese firm tests vertical landing. Chinese launch startup Landspace executed a first vertical takeoff and vertical landing with a test article Friday at a launch and recovery site at Jiuquan spaceport, Space News reports. The methane-liquid oxygen test article reached an altitude of around 350 meters during its roughly 60-second flight before setting down in a designated landing area. The landing had an accuracy of about 2.4 meters and a landing speed of less than 1 meter per second, the company said.

Part Starship, part Falcon 9 … The test is part of the development of the stainless-steel Zhuque-3 rocket first announced in November 2023. The company is aiming for the first flight of Zhuque-3 next year. It is an ambitious project: The rocket is intended to have a payload capacity of 21 tons to low-Earth orbit in expendable mode, and 18.3 tons when the rocket is recovered downrange. If Zhuque-3 comes to pass—and these are promising early results—this would be the closest thing to a Falcon 9 rocket anyone has yet developed. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Rocket Report: Iran reaches orbit; Chinese firm achieves impressive landing test Read More »

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LIGO goes to space: ESA to proceed with LISA gravitational wave detector

astronomy, cosmology, ESA, gravitational waves, LIGO, Lisa, Science, Space / /

Let’s go LISA —

A gravitational wave detector in space will be sensitive to unexplored phenomena.

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Image of three spacecraft with red lines connecting them.

Enlarge / The LISA project will consist of three spacecraft in a triangular configuration, exchanging lasers.

On Thursday, the European Space Agency’s Science Programme Committee gave the go-ahead to the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, or LISA project. This would mean the construction of the mission’s three spacecraft could begin as early as a year from now. While the interferometer would follow the same basic principles as the ground-based LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) experiment that first detected gravitational waves, the hardware would be placed 2.5 million kilometers apart, making it sensitive to an entirely new range of astronomical phenomena.

Proven tech

Existing gravitational wave detectors rely on bouncing lasers back and forth between distant mirrors before recombining them to produce an interference pattern. Anything that alters the position of the mirrors—from the rumble of a large truck to the passing of gravitational waves—will change the interference pattern. Having detectors at distant sites helps us eliminate cases of local noise, allowing us to detect astronomical events.

The detectors we’ve built on Earth have successfully picked up gravitational waves generated by the mergers of compact objects like neutron stars and black holes. But their relatively compact size means that they can only capture high-frequency gravitational waves, which are only produced in the last few seconds before a merger takes place.

To capture more of the process, we need to detect low-frequency gravitational waves. And that means a much larger distance between the interferometer’s mirrors and an escape from the seismic noise of Earth. It means going to space.

The LISA design consists of an outer shell of a spacecraft that absorbs the jostling of the dust and cosmic rays that tear through our Solar System and powers a laser strong enough to reach 2.5 million kilometers. It will also house a telescope to focus incoming laser light, which will spread from its normal tight beam over these distances. Floating freely within is a mass that, isolated from the rest of the Universe, should provide a stable platform to pick up any changes in the laser. Three spacecraft trail the Earth in its orbit around the Sun, each sending lasers to two others in a triangular configuration.

That may sound like science fiction, but ESA has already sent a pathfinder mission to space to test the technology. And it performed 20 times better than planned, providing three times the sensitivity needed for LISA to work. So there’s no obvious sticking point.

Going supermassive

Once it gets to space, it should immediately pick up the impending collisions that have resulted in LIGO detections. But it will spot them as much as a full year in advance and allow us to track where the event horizons touch. This would allow us to track the physics of their interactions over time and to potentially point optical telescopes in the right direction ahead of collisions so that we can determine whether any of these events produce radiation. (This may allow us to assign causes to some classes of events we’ve already detected via the photons.)

But that’s only part of the benefit. Due to their far larger size, supermassive black hole mergers are only detectable at lower frequencies. Since these are expected to happen following many galaxy mergers, it’s hoped we’ll be able to capture them.

Perhaps the most exciting prospect is that LISA could pick up the early gravitational fluctuations formed in the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang. That has the potential to provide a new view into the earliest history of the Universe, one that’s completely independent of the cosmic microwave background.

Now that I have you all as excited as I am, I regret to inform you that the launch date isn’t planned until 2034. So, hang in there for a decade—I promise it will be worth it.

LIGO goes to space: ESA to proceed with LISA gravitational wave detector Read More »

the-amazing-helicopter-on-mars,-ingenuity,-will-fly-no-more

The amazing helicopter on Mars, Ingenuity, will fly no more

mars helicopter, Science, Space / /

The greatest —

Ingenuity has spent more than two hours flying above Mars since April 2021.

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A close-up view of <em>Ingenuity</em> on Mars, as seen by the <em>Perseverance</em> rover.” src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/PIA24549-800×450.jpg”></img><figcaption> <p><a data-height=Enlarge / A close-up view of Ingenuity on Mars, as seen by the Perseverance rover.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Something has gone wrong with NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter on the surface of Mars. Although the US space agency has not made any public announcements yet, a source told Ars that the plucky flying vehicle had an accident on its last flight and broke one of its blades. It will not fly anymore. (Shortly after this article was published, NASA confirmed the end of Ingenuity‘s mission).

When it launched to Mars more than three years ago, the small Ingenuity helicopter was an experimental mission, a challenge to NASA engineers to see if they could devise and build a vehicle that could make a powered flight on another world.

This was especially difficulty on Mars, which has a very thin atmosphere, with a pressure of less than 1 percent that of Earth’s. The solution they landed on was a very light 4-lb helicopter with four blades. It was hoped that Ingenuity would make a handful of flights and provide NASA with some valuable testing data.

But it turns out that Ingenuity had other ideas. Since its deployment from the Perseverance rover in April 2021, the helicopter has flown a staggering 72 flights. It has spent more than two hours—128.3 minutes, to be precise—flying through the thin Martian air. Over that time, it flew 11 miles, or 17 km, performing invaluable scouting and scientific investigations. It has been a huge win for NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, one of the greatest spaceflight stories of this decade.

Getting on in Martian years

The vehicle has been showing signs of aging recently, however. And that’s not surprising. The fragile little flying machine has been exposed to the harsh Martian atmosphere for more than two and a half years, including bruising radiation, dust storms, and wide swings in temperature from very, very cold to sort of warm.

One week ago, during a simple hover test flight, NASA lost contact with Ingenuity for several hours. This is when it apparently broke one of its four blades. Later, mission operators restored communications by asking the Perseverance rover to perform long-duration listening sessions for Ingenuity’s signal.

Before that flight, on the helicopter’s 71st flight in early January, the helicopter was supposed to traverse a long distance of nearly 1,200 feet (358 meters), reaching an altitude of 40 feet (12 meters) and spending nearly 125 seconds airborne. NASA had sought to reposition the helicopter for future flights to survey new areas of the Martian surface. However, during that flight, Ingenuity made an unplanned early landing.

Now, the ingenious Ingenuity helicopter will fly no more. But just as the 1903 Wright Flyer is remembered for its first sustained, powered flight on Earth, Ingenuity will be long remembered for its contributions as humans sought to fly on worlds beyond our own.

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A Japanese spacecraft faceplanted on the Moon and lived to tell the tale

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Japan's SLIM spacecraft is seen nose down on the surface of the Moon.

Japan’s SLIM spacecraft is seen nose down on the surface of the Moon.

Japan’s first lunar lander made an unsteady touchdown on the Moon last week, moments after one of its two main engines inexplicably lost power and apparently fell off the spacecraft, officials said Thursday.

About the size of a small car, the Small Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) landed on Friday, making Japan the fifth country to achieve a soft landing on the lunar surface. Shortly after landing, ground teams in Japan realized the spacecraft was not recharging its battery with its solar panels. The evidence at the time suggested that SLIM likely ended up in an unexpected orientation on the Moon, with its solar cells facing away from the Sun.

With the benefit of six days of data crunching and analysis, officials from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) briefed reporters Thursday on what they have learned about SLIM’s landing. Indeed, the spacecraft toppled over after touching down, with its nose planted into the lunar regolith and its rear propulsion section pointed toward space.

It turns out that SLIM overcame a lot to get to that point. In the final minute of Friday’s descent, one of SLIM’s two engines failed, leaving the craft’s sole remaining engine to bring the spacecraft in for an off-balance landing. Still, JAXA officials said the spacecraft achieved nearly all of its primary objectives. The roughly $120 million robotic mission made the most pinpoint landing on the Moon in history, just as it set out to do.

“From the spacecraft, we were able to acquire all the technical data related to navigation guidance leading to landing, which will be necessary for future pinpoint landing technology, as well as navigation camera image data during descent and on the lunar surface,” JAXA said in a statement.

One of two tiny robots released by SLIM just before landing relayed a remarkable image of the lander standing upside down a short distance away. This might be the first close-up view of a crash landing, however gentle, on another world.

One plucky bird

Based on the update JAXA released Thursday, it’s extraordinary that SLIM made it to the surface in one piece.

After launching in September and arriving at the Moon in December, SLIM lined up for a final descent to the lunar surface on Friday. Around 20 minutes before landing, the spacecraft ignited its two hydrazine-fueled rocket engines for a braking maneuver to drop out of lunar orbit.

JAXA officials said everything went according to plan in the initial phases of the descent. The spacecraft pitched over from a horizontal orientation to begin a final vertical descent to the surface. SLIM’s guidance computer was preloaded with a map of the landing zone, and an onboard navigation camera took pictures of the Moon’s surface throughout the landing sequence. The spacecraft’s computer used these images to compare to the map, allowing SLIM to autonomously correct its course along the way.

The SLIM spacecraft was built by Mitsubishi Electric under contract with JAXA.

Enlarge / The SLIM spacecraft was built by Mitsubishi Electric under contract with JAXA.

JAXA

But at an altitude of around 160 feet (50 meters), something went wrong with the spacecraft’s propulsion system. Less than a minute before touchdown, one of the engines suddenly lost thrust, and moments later, a down-facing navigation camera caught a glimpse of what appeared to be one of the engine nozzles falling away from the spacecraft. JAXA said engineers believe the engine failure was likely caused by “some external factor other than the main engine itself.” Officials are still investigating to determine the root cause.

The spacecraft continued descending on the power of its remaining engine, but it became more difficult to control the lander. The thrust from the single engine imparted a sideways motion to the spacecraft. Normally, SLIM would have used thrusters to tilt itself from the vertical orientation necessary for the final descent and into a position to plop itself on the lunar surface along the spacecraft’s long axis. SLIM had five crushable landing legs to absorb the force of the gentle impact.

While this two-stage landing sequence was the plan, JAXA said Thursday that the spacecraft “touched the ground in an almost straight standing position with lateral velocity.” The vertical speed at touchdown was about 3.1 mph (1.4 meters per second), slightly slower than the expected descent rate.

“Because the ground contact conditions such as lateral speed and attitude exceeded the specification range, a large attitude change occurred after touchdown, and the aircraft settled in a different attitude than expected,” JAXA said.

In other words, the squirrelly landing caused the spacecraft to tip over. SLIM settled in a bottoms-up position on a shallow slope rather than on its side. Its solar panel wasn’t facing up but was instead pointed toward the west, away from the Sun’s position in the eastern morning sky at the landing site.

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Secret military space programs can be a little less secret, Pentagon says

classified information, military space, Pentagon, Space, space force / /
A delegation of French military officers visited the Combined Space Operations Center in 2022 at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.

Enlarge / A delegation of French military officers visited the Combined Space Operations Center in 2022 at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.

Late last year, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks signed a memo to overhaul a decades-old policy on how the Pentagon keeps sensitive military space programs secret. However, don’t expect defense officials to openly discuss everything they’re doing to counter China and Russia in orbit.

John Plumb, assistant secretary of defense for space policy, revealed the policy change in a roundtable with reporters on January 17. For many years, across multiple administrations, Pentagon officials have lamented their inability to share information with other countries and commercial partners. Inherently, they argued, this stranglehold on information limits the military’s capacity to connect with allies, deter adversaries, and respond to threats in space.

In his statement last week, Plumb said this new policy “removes legacy classification barriers that have inhibited our ability to collaborate across the US government and also with allies on issues related to space.”

But Plumb was careful to point out that the memo from Hicks calls for “declassification, not unclassification” of military space programs. “So think of it as reducing classification.” Effectively, this means the Pentagon can make sensitive information available to people with lower security clearances. More eyes on a problem usually mean better solutions.

New policy for a new century

Some of the Pentagon’s most secret space technologies are part of Special Access Programs (SAPs), where information is highly compartmentalized, and only a few officials know all facets of the program. With SAPs, it’s difficult or impossible to share information with allies and partners, and sometimes officials run into roadblocks even discussing the programs with different parts of the Defense Department.

“Overall, the department does overclassify,” Hicks told reporters in November.

Generally, it’s easier to assign a classification level to a document or program than it is to change the classification level. “The originator of a document, usually a foreign policy or national security staff member, decides if it needs to be classified,” wrote Bruce Riedel, a 30-year veteran of the CIA and a former advisor to four presidents. “In almost all cases this is a simple decision. Has its predecessors been classified? If so, classify.”

The government has periodic reviews to determine whether something still needs to be classified, but most of the time, secret documents take decades to be reviewed. If they are released at all, they generally have value only as part of the historical record.

The declassification memo signed by Hicks is, itself, classified, Plumb said. Hicks signed it at the end of last year.

“What the classification memo does generally is it … really completely rewrites a legacy document that had its roots 20 years ago,” Plumb said. “And it’s just no longer applicable to the current environment that involves national security space.”

The Pentagon has identified China as the paramount national security threat to the United States. Much of what the Pentagon is doing in space is geared toward maintaining the US military’s competitive advantage against China or responding to China in cases where Chinese capabilities may threaten US assets in orbit.

This overarching focus on China touches on all military space programs and the NRO’s fleet of spy satellites. The military is launching new constellations of satellites designed to detect and track hypersonic missiles, demonstrating their ability to quickly get a satellite into orbit, and is interested in using commercial space capabilities from US industry, ranging from in-space refueling to broadband communications.

“Our network of allies and partners is an asymmetric advantage and a force multiplier that neither China nor Russia could ever hope to match,” Plumb said.

Officials have said the threat environment requires the military to be more agile. It’s more vital to collaborate with allies and commercial partners.

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Sierra Space is blowing up stuff to prove inflatable habitats are safe

Commercial space, inflatable module, Sierra space, Space, space stations / /
Sierra Space's 300 cubic meter inflatable habitat burst at 77 psi, five times the pressure it would need to handle in space.

Enlarge / Sierra Space’s 300 cubic meter inflatable habitat burst at 77 psi, five times the pressure it would need to handle in space.

Sierra Space says it has demonstrated in a ground test that a full-scale inflatable habitat for a future space station can meet NASA’s recommended safety standards, clearing a technical gate on the road toward building a commercial outpost in low-Earth orbit.

During a December test at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, Sierra Space’s 300 cubic meter inflatable structure withstood five times the pressure it would need to handle in space. The so-called ultimate burst pressure test was designed to measure the limits of the soft goods technology Sierra Space is developing alongside ILC Dover, which also built spacesuits for NASA.

The 27-foot-diameter (8.2-meter) inflatable structure burst at 77 psi, exceeding NASA’s recommended safety standard of 60.8 psi, which is four times the module’s real-life operating pressure at 15.2 psi.

Perhaps best known for developing the Dream Chaser spaceplane, Colorado-based Sierra Space also manufactures satellites and is one of several companies in the mix for helping build a new commercial space station to replace the International Space Station.

“We’re ecstatic over the results,” said Shawn Buckley, senior director of engineering and chief technologist for Sierra Space’s EarthSpace Systems division. “Transitioning from our from our sub-scale articles, we’ve done a series of tests to validate our architecture. And being able to go into our first full-scale LIFE (Large Integrated Flexible Environment) burst test, to meet the safety factor by 27 percent, was just an amazing accomplishment by the team.”

Sierra Space is partnering with Blue Origin on a commercial space station concept called Orbital Reef. If the companies see it to fruition, Orbital Reef could become a hub for research, manufacturing, tourism, and other applications in low-Earth orbit.

The inflatable technology from Sierra Space is similar to the work performed by Bigelow Aerospace, which pioneered inflatable habitat tech for more than 20 years before laying off its entire workforce in 2020. Buckley worked on Bigelow’s inflatable habitat technology for more than 10 years, then joined Lockheed Martin for two years. In 2022, he took a leadership position overseeing Sierra Space’s space station work.

Bigelow’s design centered on a 330 cubic meter inflatable habitat, while Sierra Space’s design is slightly smaller in volume. Buckley said he couldn’t state definitively whether the LIFE burst test in December was the largest such test of an inflatable habitat design, due to restrictions about what he could say about his previous work at other companies.

“I will say that this is the largest full-scale habitat that has been publicly announced in this architecture being tested,” he told Ars in an interview.

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