Having two small children in elementary school, what they are learning is of course extremely important to me. Science is absolutely vital to our economy and future national competitiveness.
But it's how they are being taught that might be of even greater importance, according to a Space Review essay, "Student Satellites: Encouraging Trend or Sign of Panic?"
Tyler recently uploaded this animated clip of a KySat cube exiting the Poly Picosatellite Orbital Deployer, or P-POD. Housed in the launch vehicle, the P-POD will carry KySat to orbit.
Wayne
Voyager 2, on its way out of our solar system toward interstellar space, has relayed new information about the boundary region where the sun's solar wind, which dominates that heliosphere, ebbs, and the heliosheath begins.
The heliosphere appears to be lopsided.
If all goes well, the two Voyager craft should still have enough energy to transmit their findings as they make their way across the heliosheath and toward the heliopause, which marks the beginning of intersteller space, and area where our sun loses all influence.
NASA engineers believe that they have enough power onboard to return data until 2025, perhaps long enough to provide information after the two craft have left the solar system for good.
Wayne
As promised yesterday, here is a video of the deployment mechanism for the innovative CubeSat NanoSail-D. It's amazing how 10 square meters of sail can be packed into the space the size of three cubes.
[Update:] Dean Alhorn, the engineer in the video, wrote to say that "the actual sail and deployment mechanism is packed in the volume that is less that 2 cubes. The first cube is all electronics and batteries. The next two cubes [house] the sail, boom mechanism and some deployment electronics. There is room for 40 sq. meter of sail, but not enough volume for more boom length."
Thanks for the clarification!
Wayne
Holding what must be one of the more interesting jobs around, the people who do the cool animation for various NASA videos are on the Web here. Their work on video of the Constellation and Orion vehicles can also be found at NASA. Hat tip: Rob Coppinger at Hyperbola
Wayne
Members of the KySat team conducted hammer tests of the cube yesterday on the campus of UK. As Tyler explains at the bottom of this post, collecting this data and comparing it with the known vibration profile of the rocket will tell the team whether any dampening needs to be added to protect the satellite during launch.
The "test pod," which simulates the P-POD system that will physically deploy the satellite, is pictured below right. The cube is inside.
The hammer tests are part of a complete testing regime that will ensure that the cube survives launch and carries out its educational mission once it is in the cold vacuum of space.
Wayne
The Space Fellowship has published an interview with Dr. Paul Dear, who has sponsored the N-Prize or "nanosat prize." He clearly has a different take on space. From the interview:
Why a Space Prize?
It brings together a lot of things that had been simmering in the back of my mind for long time. First, I’m a space enthusiast (which is very, very different from being an expert!). I have this half-memory of sitting in front of a big old black-and-white TV watching the moon landings, and it’s stuck with me since then. I think space exploration is just something we need to do because of the type of species we are – it’s as natural as wanting to see what’s over the next hill or across the ocean. Second, I get frustrated by how long everything takes, by how conservative we’ve become, by how risk-averse we are, and by how we always have to justify every pound or cent spent. We’ve regressed since the 60’s and 70’s, if not in our abilities then in the boldness of our ambitions. The N-Prize is a way to say 'Stop taking space so seriously – it’s not rocket science!', and to get people playing again. People become very creative when they play, and the N-Prize is an invitation to play.
The entire interview is here.
Wayne
Competing on behalf of seven institutions, university students recently participated in an event sponsored by the Mars Society to test rover concepts in the Utah desert.
Teams were given four difficult tasks for the 2008 URC: two scientific analysis tasks and two engineering performance tasks. A Geology Task required teams to perform imaging in both the visible and infrared spectra, while a Soil Characterization Task involved measuring subsurface temperatures, water concentration levels, and pH levels. For both scientific analysis tasks, teams were given 35 minutes to collect data in the field with their rover followed by an additional 35 minutes to analyze the returns, and were then asked to deliver a 15-minute field briefing to the judges.
Perhaps the most sinister of challenges was the Construction Task, which required teams to secure a series of panels by tightening standard nuts and bolts. The target fasteners were placed between 15 and 75 centimeters above the ground and could be tilted forward or backward up to 45 degrees, making this difficult task even more overwhelming. In what ended up being the most dramatic and exciting event of the competition, the Emergency Navigation Task gave teams 35 minutes to deliver a small box of supplies to a distressed astronaut in the field, provided only with his last known coordinates.
Oregon State, the University of Nevada Reno and York University (Toronto, Ontario) finished one, two and three, respectively. The winner also won a trip to the 11th Annual Mars Society convention in August.
Wayne
Next Big Future lists the top ten near-term technologies that will significantly boost existing space capabilities. The technological list includes dramatically lowered access to space, faster travel to Mars, inflatable structures and electric solar sails. It's an interesting collection of technologies that are close to reality. Check it out.
Wayne
Saying that "as long as nobody gets hurt, a decent explosion livens up any experiment," the Physics arXiv blog reports on the failed test of a potential new propulsion idea, Lorentz Actuated Orbit. Could tiny satellites be powered by the Earth's magnetic field?
This is a project of Mason Peck, who has also been working on modular reconfigurable space craft held together by magnetic flux pinning. CubeSats might be used to test these principles.
Wayne
Dr. Jim Lumpp, faculty adviser for Kentucky Space, was kind enough to offer an update on the status of the CubeSat on Tuesday.
Wayne
When I first saw this video from the Delphi C3 team - thanks Tyler! - I thought of everyone on the KySpace CubeSat team. Here's to a similarly happy outcome when KySat flies!
Wayne
According to the Oregon Space Grant Consortium, NASA will be conducting a webcast a portion of the Phoenix Lander mission for schools on Thursday, May 22 as the robot explorer, which will touch down on Mars on May 25, nears the planet. The events of the entry, descent and landing, and the path to Mars so far will be reviewed.
Phoenix's mission is to land at the Mars' north pole, dig into the icy soil looking for the chemical building blocks of life and study the history of water.
But first it much touch down safely on the Red Planet. Here is a very well done video combining animation with expert narration of the challenge getting Phoenix to the ground:
Wayne
The BBC follows up the record launch of 10 satellites by India with a closer look at the Indian space program. Thanks Tyler for the link!
Wayne
NewScientist has posted this animation of a new kind of solar sail that might use spun, positively charged wires to repel positively charged ions to move through space. A written summary can be found here.
Wayne
Unlike previous craft to land on Mars, the Mars Science Laboratory is big - very big. The Universe Today describes the challenge of lowering it through the planet's thin atmosphere to the surface of the planet.
MSL will be the first planetary mission to use precision landing techniques, using a rocket-guided entry with a heat shield to steer itself toward the Martian surface similar to the way the space shuttle controls its entry through the Earth's upper atmosphere. In this way, the spacecraft will fly to a desired location above the surface of Mars before deploying its parachute for the final landing. MSL will use a scaled-up version of parachutes used for the Viking and Mars Exploration Rovers mission. Called a Disk-Gap-Band parachute, the name describes the construction of the parachute: a disk forms the canopy, then a small gap, followed by a cylindrical band.
Carrying a science lab on board, the job of robotic craft will be to uncover evidence for whether the Martian environment could once have been favorable for microbial life.
USA Today also carries a story about the difficulties of the Mars Science Laboratory mission.
Wayne
You've heard me mention solar sails from time to time, but until today I had not heard of magnetic sails. In a post entitled "Braking into Epsilon Eridani," Paul Gilster at Centauri Dreams explains what they are:
Instead of catching the momentum of solar photons with a large physical sail, try riding the flow of charged particles coming out of the Sun by using a magnetic sail generated aboard the vehicle. Velocities of several hundred kilometers per second seem feasible.
If serious thinking about interstellar travel gets your attention, Centauri Dreams is your blog. The comments to the post also contain a nice exchange.
Wayne
Wikipedia: solar sails, magnetic sails
Inflatable construction in space? New technology may make construction much easier using inflatable pieces.
Wayne
In a recent email
Tyler reminded me that the Delphi-C3 launch is a mere 12 days away, linking to a photoblog the team has thrown up to document its experiences.
The Delphi team is currently near the launch site in India.
The mission will test a new type of thin film solar cells in the space environment. Using a wireless link for data transfer, an autonomous Sun Sensor will also be tested. And a third new technology deployed during the Delfi-C3 mission will be "an advanced high efficiency transceiver sized for application in pico- and nanosatellites."
The image on the right is a rendering of the satellite that can also be found on mission's media page.
Finally, the public forums on the main site also contain this just-published and nicely done overview (PDF) of the entire mission. Thanks for the tips, Tyler.
Wayne
A nicely edited recap of Armadillo Aerospace's activities in the past year has been uploaded to YouTube.
Armadillo presented the video at the just concluded Space Access Conference.
If not for a bit of bad luck the outfit probably would have won the 2007 Lunar Lander Challenge.
The organization, which is extremely open about its work, will progress to high altitude flights as the year goes on, according to RLV and Space Transport.
Wayne
Did NASA seriously think about cutting funding for Spirit and Opportunity, the Mars rovers?
Wayne
James Cutler, Ph.D., a Consulting Professor at Stanford's Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, recently referenced some solar sail research on a listserv that I monitor. With his permission, here are his references in case any KySat blog readers are interested:
Thank you Dr. Cutler!
Wayne
What kinds of design decisions must be made when choosing a motor for a moon lander? The Southern California Selene Group, which is competing for the Google Lunar X Prize, has posted its take on some engineering and propulsion issues it's currently facing. The latest on the teams and news may be found here.
Wayne
Space Prizes carries news of two cansat competitions, one in Texas and the other, Spain. The international competition describes the vehicle this way.
A CanSat is a 'scale satellite' integrated within a soft drink can, that is launched up to 500m onboard an amateur rocket. Inside this reduced volume, all subsystems must fit (power, telemetry & command, recovery, payload) and it must accomplish a full mission
Wayne
The teams in the Google Lunar X Prize are actively posting news about their work. One, Astrobotic, has recently contributed pictures of hardware, including a vacuum chamber, actuators, battery, wheel, and a model of the rover.
Wayne
One of the teams participating in the Google Lunar X Prize challenge has posted this video of a robotic sphere, which as the team's blog entry also points out, has been the subject of a New York Times article.
Wayne
Doing the environmental testing so that the delivered satellite will pass all the acceptance level testing at CalPoly is our current focus.
KySat is shooting for a July 1 deadline to deliver a satellite ready to fly.
Software development is nearing a conclusion. KySat is using the real time operating system supplied by Pumpkin. In two weeks the software team is expected to release v. 1.0 of its flight software.
The team will begin integration of the engineering model (spare) in about two and one-half weeks. In a previous integration last May the team found many problems that have since been addressed. Those fixes will be incorporated into this integration effort. The engineering model is an exact duplicate that will be used for a first run of environmental testing. Such testing is designed to ensure that the space craft will survive launch and the harsh space environment.
The biggest challenge right now is designing and locating test facilities for thermal and vacuum work.
Bakeout (to ensure no out-gassing will occur), vibration testing (to simulate launch) and vacuum and thermal cycle testing (to simulate on-orbit operations) needs to be done. Ideally, processes for doing all of this will be developed in-house, but a decision as to whether those processes will be outsourced could be made very soon.
About three or four weeks into this, we will start the construction of a flight model. The flight model will be the space craft that is shipped to the launch integrator.
All the effort put into the development of the engineering model should make flight model development go that much faster.
Tyler Doering
This video demonstrating the machining of SwissCube was recently uploaded to YouTube.
Wayne
JPL is accepting applications for its Planetary Science Summer school program. Applicants who have completed graduate work in sciences and engineering are preferred. According to the announcement the program is "An intensive one-week team exercise learning the process of developing a robotic mission concept into reality through concurrent engineering. Limited funds are available to provide partial support for travel and lodging."
The application form is here.News about the major expansion of teams competing for the Google Lunar X Prize has been posted to YouTube. Judging by the sheer number of hits it has received in so short a time, this business of private missions to the Moon excites a lot of people.
Wayne
NASA has introduced a nice interactive graphic describing how space exploration affects each of us. Click on "NASA Home and City" for an interactive tour through the everyday items found in a typical home that have roots in the space program. The graphics and execution of the newly redesigned NASA web home is simply outstanding.
Wayne
Jeff Foust points out that Armadillo Aerospace, which has come close to wining the Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge on a couple of occasions, has updated its blog with some extensive information on recent motor testing. Also included is an image of a proposed single person sub-orbit vehicle, reproduced here. While Armadillo cautions against reading too much into a concept image, it certainly is fun to look at. Image is courtesy of Armadillo Aerospace.
Wayne
The Oregon Space Grant consortium lists four free Mars Web seminars designed for science educators, one of which focuses on the Mars Student Imaging Project. The National Science Teachers Association has more on this opportunity.
Wayne
Space Prizes links to some recent news from one competitor for the Google Lunar X Prize, Carnegie Mellon. The student newspaper, The Tartan, which reported on a recent faculty and student presentation on the Google Lunar X Prize from Pathfinder veteran, Tony Spear, also reported this nugget about the team's plans:
Due to the moon’s proximity to Earth, the robot will be able to transmit a high-bandwidth reciprocal interaction. Carnegie Mellon’s robot for the competition, which is currently under construction, will have multiple cameras attached to it to satisfy requirements of the competition to transmit video, photos, and information back to Earth.
The moon rover will land on the site of Apollo 11, where Neil Armstrong first landed on the moon. The robot will transmit high-resolution photo and video images from the momentous site on the moon
A total of ten teams are listed on the competitors' page at the X Prize Foundation. Astrobotic is the CM entry.
Wayne
Hobbeyspace lists the week's agenda on The Space Show. On Friday an interview with Dr. Louis Friedman of the Planetary Society will be aired, the subject of which will be the recent meeting at Stanford to discuss the Vision for Space Exploration. It should be interesting.
The Planetary Society has already posted this news about the meeting.
Wayne
How might the Wii remote be used to teach physics? Guest blogging at one of my favorite astroblogs, Star Stryder, Dr. Lenore Horner has a few ideas and suggests DarwiinRemote (Mac), WiiRemote (Windows) and Wiili, a Linux port for the Wii (below) for those of you who like to play with software.
Motion sensors aren’t really new in teaching labs, so why did this one get me so wound up I’d spend a whole vacation teaching myself new stuff just so I could play with it? One thing is that it’s three axes and not just one. Another is that it’s relatively small and light - designed to be held and swung instead of rigidly mounted. A third is that it’s cheap enough to buy as a toy and the software is open source so I can fix it if it doesn’t do what I want - which I’ve already done some of. Lastly is the fact that the Wiimote wasn’t designed for a specific experiment, it was designed to do more or less everything and it’s up to us to find cool things to do with it....
For more on open source software for the Wiimote on all operating systems, go to the Wiili site.
This sounds like it could be just the thing for restless middle schoolers.
Wayne
As part of the the Nanosat-5 competition, Washington University students will take a ride in NASA's "vomit comet" along with a couple of their satellites, Bandit and Akoya. At just 3 Kg, Bandit is designed to detach and maneuver around Akoya in flight. According to one of the students, "allowing Bandit to free float will give much better data regarding the propulsion system, but it will also present additional challenges due to the speed of the plane and the potential for problems."
The ride is made possible by NASA's Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program.
Washington University is one of 11 schools participating in Nanosat-5.
Wayne
If you haven't found it already, HobbySpace has a page devoted to space-related software, some of which is open source and likely to be free or very low cost.
Wayne
Talk about formation flying. Could CubeSats be used to demonstrate newly discovered non-contact assembly principles that might be used to build large equipment and satellites in space?
Dr. Mason Peck, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell and director of the Space Systems Design Studio, is, according to Centauri Dreams
investigating an unusual property of type II superconductors called magnetic flux pinning, which may provide an ideal technology for in-orbit self-assembly of modular spacecraft and satellite formations.
Tests have confirmed that objects can be "pinned" across a gap a few centimeters wide, but Peck would like to widen the gap "by a factor of 10 or 100."
This is where it gets interesting:
Cornell graduate student Joe Shoer hopes to launch a CubeSat demonstration of Peck’s non-contacting modular reconfigurable spacecraft design in a few years.
Guest blogging at Centauri Dreams, Larry Klaes of the Tau Zero Foundation also links to this Cornell site about modular reconfigurable spacecraft that may interest you.
Wayne
SpaceX has conducted the first mult-engine firing of the engines that will power Falcon9, the company's heavy lift vehicle. Here is a YouTube of an earlier single engine test of the Merlin 1C, nine of which will power the first stage of the rocket. The engines are designed to be recovered and reused after each mission.
Wayne
Bet you've never asked this question before. Would a paper airplane burn up on re-entering Earth's atmosphere?
Wayne
This isn't your ordinary flight software. The very latest Carnival of Space is out, featuring, appropriately enough now that MESSENGER is in the news, a really nice article on interplanetary trajectory design that includes links to software to model spacecraft trajectories.
Nowadays at places like JPL, interplanetary trajectory design is incredibly sophisticated. Simulation, optimization, and visualization software make it possible to meet all sorts of constraints and requirements and to perform and pre-visualize all sorts of "what ifs." If you would like to play around with this sort of stuff yourself, there is the great combination of Orbiter and IMFD (Interplanetary MFD by Jarmo Nikkanen, a wonderful planning tool that runs inside Orbiter itself, now up to version 5.1d). Gravity Simulator 2.0 is another great and free tool for playing with orbits and trajectories. You can even use JPL Horizons data to get real spacecraft data to use in your own simulations (see my earlier tutorial post on this).
Wayne
Nancy Atkinson at Universe Today runs down the 2008 launch calendar, which includes a number of scientific missions as well as links to their respective web sites.
Wayne
While writing a post on Elon Musk I had briefly mentioned news that Falcon9, the heavy lift vehicle being developed by his company, SpaceX, had undergone hold-down firings. In addition to that news, SpaceX also provides a very comprehensive update on its entire program on the same page, which includes many, many high quality images of the motors, rockets, SpaceX facilities and Dragon, the capsule for human travelers. Check it out.
Wayne
[Cross posted from the IdeaFestival weblog] Yeah, the plastic would probably shatter and then there's the not inconsequential step of getting there, but for the real do-it-yourselfer, the LEGO MINDSTORMS blog playfully wonders what it would take to win the Google Lunar X Prize. I'm thinking that's a whole new product line.
Wayne
A new launch date for the University of Delft nanosat project has been set and it's February 14.
Check out the Delfi-C3 site for a nifty countdown clock and particulars of the project, including a nice graphic of the satellite, payload, bus, and ground station information.
Good luck with the launch!
The image is courtesy of the project's media page. Check out all the project pages - they certainly constitute one of the best CubeSat sites that I know.
Wayne
Space Prizes links to a Will Pomerantz post at the X Prize Foundation, who covers a lot of ground related to the work of the X Prize Foundation. But he also drops this bit of news about the Google Lunar X Prize that I wanted to pass along.
With the new year, the Google Lunar X PRIZE is getting some new teams. We've received and gone over several applications already, and we've got some really exciting teams that will debut soon. I can't give away too much right now, but stay tuned.
The second moon race will award $35 million to the first team to put a privately funded craft on the moon, travel at least 500 yards and return a "mooncast" of the mission from the lunar surface.
Wayne
Citing 39 examples of space technology in categories such as health, transportation and computer technology that provide tangible benefits to society, NASA has released Spinoff 2007, its annual list of NASA technology with big benefits on Earth.
Wayne
Universe Today describes the design challenges of roving the surface of Venus in its article, "How to Keep a Venus Rover Cool." With crushing pressures 100 times that of Earth and temperatures reaching 840F degrees, the planet's environment has proved very formidable and has prevented any extended scientific exploration. A greater understanding of climate change on Venus and Earth makes the effort, however, worthwhile.
One design method considered by the researchers at NASA's John Glenn Research Center would would split the communications duties between craft. The rover would contain minimal electronics in an internal chamber cooled (relatively speaking) to 570F degrees. Rover locomotion would come from a Stirling engine. To help with communication an aircr
