A new look at data from NASA's Cassini mission confirms methane cycles on Saturn's largest moon, Titan, just as water cycles on Earth.
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NASA plans for space station’s demise with new SpaceX ‘Deorbit Vehicle’
An artist’s impression of SpaceX’s ISS Deorbit Vehicle pushing the lab toward a controlled re-entry and breakup in the 2030 timeframe, after a formal decision to retire the lab complex after three decades of operation. Graphic: SpaceX
SpaceX is building a souped-up version of its cargo Dragon spacecraft to drive the International Space Station out of orbit for a controlled re-entry and breakup over an uninhabited stretch of ocean when the lab is finally retired in the 2030 timeframe, NASA and company officials said Wednesday.
The ISS Deorbit Vehicle, or DV, will be a custom-built, one-of-a-kind spacecraft needed to make sure the space station re-enters the atmosphere at the precise place and in the proper orientation to insure any wreckage that survives the 3,000-degree heat of re-entry will crash harmlessly into the sea.
In late June, NASA awarded SpaceX a contract valued at up to $843 million to build the deorbit vehicle, which will be owned and operated by the space agency. The heavy-lift rocket needed to launch it has not yet been selected, but NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has asked Congress for a total of about $1.5 billion to carry the de-orbit operation.
And it is no trivial matter. The long axis of the space station, made up of multiple pressurized modules where visiting crews live and work, measures 218 feet long. The lab’s solar array power and cooling truss, mounted at right angles to the long axis, stretches 310 feet from end to end, longer than a U.S. football field.
The entire lab complex has a combined mass of 925,000 pounds and it’s moving through space at some 17,100 mph, or 84 football fields per second.
Preparing for Juice’s daring double flyby
Next month, ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) will carry out the first combined lunar-Earth flyby. Preparations are under way at ESA mission control for this highly precise manoeuvre, which will harness the gravitational forces of the Moon and Earth in quick succession to line Juice up for the next stage of its journey to Jupiter.
NASA cancels half-billion dollar water-ice-seeking VIPER Moon rover
NASA’s VIPER – short for the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover – sits assembled inside the cleanroom at the agency’s Johnson Space Center. Image: NASA/Helen Arase Vargas
NASA announced Wednesday it was pulling the plug on the VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) project. It was the second time in less than a decade, NASA scrapped plans for a roving scout to explore the Moon for water ice, the decision coming six years after cancelling a similar mission, the Resource Prospector.
The 430 kg (948 lbs.) rover was designed to fly to the Moon’s South Pole onboard Astrobotic’s Griffin lander, the second planned mission to the Moon for the Pittsburgh-based company. Astrobotics first mission, the smaller Peregrine lander, ended prematurely in January when a propulsion issue prevented it from reaching the Moon.
During a teleconference with members of the press, Joel Kearns, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for exploration within the Science Mission Directorate, pointed at ballooning costs as a big driver for the cancellation of VIPER.
“When we formalized the VIPER project, we told Congress that the budget for the project would be $433.5 million and that the landing would be at the end of 2023,” Kearns said. “We had already made the decision to reschedule landing for 2024 so that we could have Astrobotic do additional propulsion tests on the lander.
“When we made that decision, we updated the VIPER work plan and we reset the budget to $505.4 million with a landing at the end of 2024. But our latest estimate that was done earlier this year showed that since we were no longer planning to land VIPER at the end of 2024, but instead would have to do it for the science window 2025, that the cost for the VIPER project was projected to be $609.6 million.”
ESA gears up for the Farnborough International Airshow
The Farnborough International Airshow is set to return for its 76th edition from 22 to 26 July 2024, and ESA will be there to showcase the agency’s latest achievements and to highlight its next steps and future vision for Europe in space.
Officially, Only the Sun Can Have Planets. Is it Time to Fix the Definition of “Planet”?
What is the true definition of a planet, and could there be a more refined definition in the future? This is what a recent study published in The Planetary Science Journal hopes to address as a team of researchers from the United States and Canada investigated the potential for a new definition of a “planet”. This study holds the potential to challenge the longstanding definition outlined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), which established IAU Resolution B5 in 2006, resulting in demoting Pluto from a “planet” to a “dwarf planet”.
Here, Universe Today discusses this incredible research with study lead author, Dr. Jean-Luc Margot, who is a professor in the Department of Earth, Planetary & Space Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, regarding the motivation behind the study, significant results, what steps need to be taken for the IAU to implement his new definition, and whether Dr. Margot thinks Pluto should be reclassified as a planet. So, what was the motivation behind this study?
“IAU Resolution B5 is problematic – it is vague and excludes exoplanets – and the problems will not go away on their own,” Dr. Margot tells Universe Today. “Our community and the public deserve better definitions for such important astrophysical terms as ‘planet’ and ‘satellite’. We have had 18 years to identify the problems and consider possible ways forward. There are good reasons to believe that we are better equipped in 2024 than in 2006 to produce a good outcome.”
According to IAU Resolution B5, the current definition of a planet is as follows:
(a) is in orbit around the Sun,
Neutron Star is Spraying Jets Like a Garden Sprinkler
X-ray binaries are some of the oddest ducks in the cosmic zoo and they attract attention across thousands of light-years. Now, astronomers have captured new high-resolution radio images of the first one ever discovered. It’s called Circinus X-1. Their views show a weird kind of jet emanating from the neutron star member of the binary. The jet rotates like an off-axis sprinkler as it spews material out through surrounding space, sending shockwaves through the interstellar medium.
The MeerKAT radio telescope in South African spotted the S-shaped jets emanating from the neutron star. Its images are the first-ever high-resolution views of such jets, according to lead researcher Fraser Cowie. “This image is the first time we have seen strong evidence for a precessing jet from a confirmed neutron star,” he said, referring to the neutron star’s off-axis spin. “This evidence comes from both the symmetric S shape of the radio-emitting plasma in the jets and from the fast, wide shockwave, which can only be produced by a jet changing direction.”
Such an awkward spin gives the jets their peculiar S-like configuration. Since scientists aren’t completely sure what phenomena caused them to launch in the first place, studying the odd behavior gives insight into the extreme physics behind its existence.
Examining the Neutron Star Jets in Detail
The MeerKAT measurements showed not only the jet but revealed termination shocks moving away from the neutron star. These occur in regions where the jets slam into material in surrounding space. This is the first time astronomers found such shocks around an X-ray binary like Circinus X-1. Those waves are moving fast—at about 10 percent the speed of light and their structure points back to the jet as their source. “The fact that these shockwaves span a wide angle agrees with our model,” Cowie said. “So we have two strong pieces of evidence telling us the neutron star jet is processing.”
A MeerKAT radio image of the S-shape jet precessing in the Circinus X-1 X-ray binary pair system. The jet emanates as a result of the accretion of material around the neutron star. Courtesy: Fraser Cowie, Attribution CC BY 4.0.
NASA Stops Work on VIPER Moon Rover, Citing Cost and Schedule Issues
NASA says it intends to discontinue development of its VIPER moon rover, due to cost increases and schedule delays — but the agency is also pointing to other opportunities for robotic exploration of the lunar south polar region.
The Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover was originally scheduled for launch in late 2023, targeting the western edge of Nobile Crater near the moon’s south pole.
The south polar region is a prime target for exploration because it’s thought to hold deposits of water ice that could sustain future lunar settlements. NASA plans to send astronauts to that region by as early as 2026 for the first crewed lunar landing since 1972.
Unfortunately, the VIPER project ran into a series of delays, due to snags in the testing and development of the rover as well as the Astrobotic Griffin lander that was to deliver the rover to the lunar surface. The readiness date for VIPER and Griffin was most recently pushed back to September 2025.
During an internal review, NASA managers decided that continuing with VIPER’s development would result in cost increases that could lead to the cancellation or disruption of other moon missions in NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS. NASA notified Congress of its intent to discontinue development.
'The Ark' season 2 is 'love letter' to optimistic classic sci-fi, creators say (exclusive)
An interview with showrunners Dean Devlin and Jonathan Glassner for "The Ark" season 2.
NASA Cancels Lunar Rover Mission
The development of the VIPER lunar rover has been discontinued.
The post NASA Cancels Lunar Rover Mission appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
NASA cancels $450 million VIPER moon rover due to budget concerns
NASA announced it has ended the VIPER rover project, which was intended to explore the moon in search of ice near the lunar south pole.
25 things to admire in the night sky that aren't just the moon and stars
We've picked out 25 skywatching targets to celebrate Space.com's 25th anniversary. Can you catch them all?
Experimental Radar Technique Reveals the Composition of Titan’s Seas
The Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn generated so much data that giving it a definitive value is impossible. It’s sufficient to say that the amount is vast and that multiple scientific instruments generated it. One of those instruments was a radar designed to see through Titan’s thick atmosphere and catch a scientific glimpse of the moon’s extraordinary surface.
Scientists are still making new discoveries with all this data.
Though Saturn has almost 150 known moons, Titan attracts almost all of the scientific attention. It’s Saturn’s largest moon and the Solar System’s second largest. But Titan’s surface is what makes it stand out. It’s the only object in the Solar System besides Earth with surface liquids.
Cassini’s radar instrument had two basic modes: active and passive. In active mode, it bounced radio waves off surfaces and measured what was reflected back. In passive mode, it measured waves emitted by Saturn and its moons. Both of these modes are called static modes.
But Cassini had a third mode called bistatic mode that saw more limited use. It was experimental and used its Radio Science Subsystem (RSS) to bounce signals off of Titan’s surface. Instead of travelling back to sensors on the spacecraft, the signals were reflected back to Earth, where they were received at one of NASA’s Deep Space Network (DNS) stations. Critically, after bouncing off of Titan’s surface, the signal was split into two, hence the name bistatic.
![This image of the hydrocarbon seas on Titan is well-known and was radar-imaged by Cassini. That radar data told us how deep the seas are. New bistatic radar data can reveal more about the composition and surface texture of the seas. Image Credit: [JPL-CALTECH/NASA, ASI, USGS]](https://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/titan-seas-labelled.jpg)
ISS could 'drift down' for a year before SpaceX vehicle destroys it in Earth's atmosphere
It will take some time for the ISS to come down to Earth in the 2030s. NASA says it will take about 12 to 18 months to naturally fall back to our planet before a new SpaceX deorbit vehicle pushes it back into Earth's atmosphere.
Vaya Space receives pathfinding liquid oxygen tank shell for its Dauntless rocket
A liquid oxygen tank shell was delivered from Scorpius Space Launch Company in California to Vaya Space in Florida on Monday, July 15, 2024. This will serve as a pathfinding test article as Vaya Space continues working on its forthcoming Dauntless rocket. Image: Will Robinson-Smith/Spaceflight Now
A delivery from California to Florida on Monday marked a new milestone for aerospace company, Vaya Space. It received its first, full-sized liquid oxygen tank shell for its two-stage Dauntless rocket.
The company, based in Cocoa, Florida, about 13 miles from the gates of Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, is working towards its first orbital launch in 2026.
“We’ve been working on the design of the Dauntless vehicle for almost two years now, ever since we did our flight tests out in Mohave to prove out the last questions we had on the basic engine technology,” said Robert Fabian, Vaya Space’s Chief Operating Officer. “And so, what we’re seeing now is our dream, this, come to life. It’s an amazing moment for the company.”
The company was founded in 2017 by Sid Gutierrez, a former NASA astronaut and Space Shuttle commander. He was the first U.S.-born, Hispanic astronaut.
The name “Vaya Space” stems from the final call to the crew of STS-59 about two minutes before liftoff when the Orbiter Test Conductor in launch control said, “Endeavour, close and lock your visors, initiate O2 flow, and ‘Vaya con Dios!” which translates to “God be with you as you go.”
'Star Wars: The Acolyte' episode 8: How open-ended is the conclusion?
"The Acolyte" sticks the landing with a strong season 1 finale that gives closure to the main plot while offering a look at the series' future.
The James Webb Space Telescope is studying an exoplanet's eternal day — and eternal night
A tidally locked gas giant experiences eternal sunshine on one side, and eternal darkness on the other.
These durable Celestron Nature DX 12x56 binoculars have dipped below $200 at Amazon
Get these attractive, yet rugged, waterproof and fog-proof binoculars before they return to full price tomorrow.
These are the cheapest binocular deals you can buy on the last day of Prime Day
The Best Prime Day binocular deals to snap up before midnight tonight (July 17)
Newly discovered cave on the moon could house future lunar astronauts
The lava tube is likely one of many on the lunar surface.
