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Mars Base

ESA Awakens Rosetta's Comet Lander - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...-awakens-rosettas-comet-lander

scibyte125

shared by Mars Base on 29 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • ESA sent a wake-up call to the 100-kg (220-lb) lander riding aboard the Rosetta spacecraft
  • bringing it out of its nearly 33-month-long slumber and beginning its preparation for its upcoming
  • landing on the surface of a comet in November
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Rosetta, which awoke in January via a pre-programmed signal, Philae received a “personal wake-up call” from Earth, 655 million kilometers away.
  • A confirmation signal from the lander was received by ESA five and a half hours later
Mars Base

Europe OKs Funding for Mars Mission with Russia | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/mars-mars-mission-funding.html

scibyte39 mars

shared by Mars Base on 21 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • European Space Agency (ESA
  • agreed to continue funding a Mars telecommunications orbiter and atmospheric gas analyzer mission for launch in 2016
  • Russian Proton rocket donated by the Russian space agency
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • ExoMars is a two-mission project that is considered as a single program at ESA
  • council decision removes an immediate problem for ExoMars, it does not solve the longer-term funding issue that has dogged the project for years
  • ESA wants to have a high-resolution imager on their 2016 mission, but the hitch is they need a commitment from NASA
  • ESA official said that with ExoMars now taking on more scientific instruments, many provided by Russia
Mars Base

ESA - ESA Spacecraft Operations - ESA station keeps contact with Russian Mars mission P... - 0 views

www.esa.int/...SEM5AJZW5VG_0.html

scibyte23 Phobos-Grunt

shared by Mars Base on 24 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Following the first successful contact on Tuesday, ESA's tracking station in Australia again established two-way communication with Russia's Phobos–Grunt spacecraft on 23 November
  • data received from the spacecraft have been sent to the Russian mission control centre for analysis
  • The first pass was successful in that the spacecraft's radio downlink was commanded to switch on and telemetry was received
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The signals received from Phobos–Grunt were much stronger than those initially received on 22 November, in part due to having better knowledge of the spacecraft's orbital position
  • Telemetry typically includes information on the status and health of a spacecraft's systems
  • 24 November
Mars Base

ESA's Solar Probe to be Protected Using Prehistoric Cave Pigment - 0 views

www.scienceworldreport.com/...g-prehistoric-cave-pigment.htm

scibyte120 ESA ESA-SolarOrbiter

shared by Mars Base on 14 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • European Space Agency's engineers will use burnt bone charcoal to protect its solar probe from the harsh glare of the Sun.
  • Burnt bone charcoal, also used in prehistoric cave paintings, will be used by scientists in the titanium heatshield of ESA's Solar Orbiter spacecraft.
  • will help in protecting the Orbiter from the strong glare of the Sun
  • ...15 more annotations...
  •  Solar Orbiter, due to launch in 2017, will carry a range of instruments in order to conduct high-resolution imaging of the Sun
  • The main body of the spacecraft takes cover behind a
  • heatshield
  • . slightly more than a quarter of the distance to Earth. The temperatures will be as high as 520 degree C
  • "To go on absorbing sunlight, then convert it into infrared to radiate back out to space, its surface material needs to maintain constant 'thermo-optical properties' - keep the same colour despite years of exposure to extreme ultraviolet radiation
  • , the shield cannot shed material or outgas vapour, because of the risk of contaminating Solar Orbiter's highly sensitive instruments
  • has to avoid any build-up of static charge in the solar wind because that might threaten a disruptive or even destructive discharge,"
  • Andrew Norman, a materials technology specialist
  • The engineers ruled out carbon fiber fabric, their first choice, as it is a light polymer.
  • s company makes titanium medical implants. They use the CoBlast technique that is best suited for reactive metals like titanium, aluminium and stainless steel, basically metals that have a surface of oxide layer.
  • also include a second 'dopant' material possessing whatever characteristics are needed
  • spray the metal surface with abrasive material to grit-blast this layer of
  • simultaneously takes the place of the oxide layer being stripped out,
  • the new layer gets bonded and effectively becomes a part of the metal. The company will apply 'Solar Black', to the outer titanium sheet of the probe's multi layered heatshield
  • Solar Black is a type of black calcium phosphate that is developed from burnt bone charcoal.
Mars Base

Join the 2012 Hubble's Hidden Treasures Competition | ESA/Hubble - 0 views

spacetelescope.org/...ann1203

scibyte40 esa hubble

shared by Mars Base on 28 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • hidden in Hubble’s huge data archives are still some truly breathtaking images that have never been seen in public
  • Hubble’s Hidden Treasures
  • inviting the public into Hubble’s vast science archive to dig out the best unseen Hubble images
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • you could win an iPod Touch in our Hubble’s Hidden Treasures Competition.
  • Download the data from the Hubble Legacy Archive, process using powerful open-source software such as the ESO/ESA/NASA FITS Liberator and make a beautiful image for our Hubble’s Hidden Treasures Image Processing Contest Flickr group.
  • you’ll be in with a chance to win an iPad.
  • Both parts of the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures competition close on 31 May 2012
  • The best datasets that you identify will also be featured as future pictures of the week and photo releases on spacetelescope.org.
Mars Base

Hubble directly observes the disc around a black hole - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...11-hubble-disc-black-hole.html

scibyte20 black holes quasar

shared by Mars Base on 06 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Scientists have used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to observe a quasar accretion disc -- a glowing disc of matter that is slowly being sucked into its galaxy's central black hole
  • Scientists have used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to observe a quasar accretion disc -- a glowing disc of matter that is slowly being sucked into its galaxy's central black hole.
  • the team measured the disc's size and studied the colours (and hence the temperatures) of different parts of the disc
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • Using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, combined with the gravitational lensing effect of stars in a distant galaxy, the team measured the disc's size and studied the colours (and hence the temperatures) of different parts of the disc.
  • Until now, the minute apparent size of quasars has meant that most of our knowledge of their inner structure has been based on theoretical extrapolations, rather than direct observations.
  • show a level of precision equivalent to spotting individual grains of sand on the surface of the Moon
  • Quasars — short for quasi-stellar objects — are glowing discs of matter that orbit supermassive black holes, heating up and emitting extremely bright radiation as they do so.
  • These observations show a level of precision equivalent to spotting individual grains of sand on the surface of the Moon.
  • using the stars in an intervening galaxy as a scanning microscope to probe features in the quasar's disc that would otherwise be far too small to see
  • As these stars move across the light from the quasar, gravitational effects amplify the light from different parts of the quasar, giving detailed colour information for a line that crosses through the accretion disc.
  • the team were able to reconstruct the colour profile across the accretion disc
  • allowed the team to measure the diameter of the disc of hot matter, and plot how hot it is at different distances from the centre
  • Quasars' physical properties are not yet well understood
  • This new ability to obtain observational measurements is therefore opening a new window to help understand the nature of these objects."
Mars Base

Hubble's Hidden Treasures 2012 | ESA/Hubble - 0 views

www.spacetelescope.org/...hiddentreasures

scibyte40 hubble esa Contest

shared by Mars Base on 28 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Since 1990, Hubble has made more than a million observations
  • the most stunning are in our Top 100 gallery and iPad app.
  • Searching Hubble’s archive for hidden treasures is a lot of fun, and it’s pretty straightforward, even if you don’t have advanced knowledge
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • prepared some tutorials to get you started with searching the archive
  • Hubble’s Hidden Treasures 2012: Find and tweak Hubble observations using a set of simple online tools. It’s easy and fun, and anyone can take part. Top prize: Apple iPod Touch and goodies
  • Hubble’s Hidden Treasures 2012 Image Processing: Find Hubble observations and then process them using professional astronomical imaging software. An extra challenge for amateur astronomers or people keen to learn about astronomical image processing. Top prize: Apple iPad and goodies
  • you’re playing with real data from the world’s most famous astronomical observatory
Mars Base

How to find hidden treasures in the archive | ESA/Hubble - 0 views

www.spacetelescope.org/...archive

scibyte40 esa hubble Contest

shared by Mars Base on 28 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • How to find hidden treasures in the archive
  • The main interface to get at the Hubble data is the Hubble Legacy Archive website.
  • search box lets you look for objects based on their name or coordinates
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • advanced search option is useful to restrict the search to specific instruments (cameras) on Hubble
  • recommend narrowing your search to give only results from ACS, WFC3 and WFPC2 – Hubble’s general purpose cameras.
  • Universe is a big place
  • there are many, many objects which Hubble has never studied
  • not all of Hubble’s observations are images
  • most observations are only released to the public a year after they have been made
  • scientists get the first chance to work with their data. These are marked “proprietary data, no preview”.
  • several options for how to display the results
  • easiest is to click on the images tab, which gives you preview images of all the results
  • Another useful view is the footprints tab, which shows the location of Hubble’s images overlaid on an image of the part of the sky where they are located
  • in most cases) offer an option to open the interactive display
  • opens the interactive tool which you can use to look at the image in more detail, and carry out basic image processing such as adjusting the zoom and changing the contrast and colour balance
  • lets you save your work as a JPEG.
  • process is entirely browser-based, and you need no special software
  • You can also download the data in FITS format
  • can then use
  • FITS Liberator
  • Photoshop
  • more sophisticated image processing
Mars Base

What is image processing? | ESA/Hubble - 0 views

www.spacetelescope.org/...imageprocessing

scibyte40 hubble Contest esa

shared by Mars Base on 28 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • What is image processing?
  • Hubble takes pictures which capture many more colours and gradations of light and dark than the human eye (or consumer digital cameras) can see
  • are also quirks in how its cameras work
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • designed to make scientifically useful observations rather than being optimised for pretty pictures.
  • most of these quirks have already been corrected in the data you find in the archive,
  • images are still scientific data rather than photographs like those from a normal digital camera
  • still contain far more information than the eye can see.
  • beautiful Hubble images that we all know have all been extensively tweaked and optimised by hand, in order to reveal as much of the data as possible
  • brightening the glowing gas in nebulae or compressing the dynamic range of galaxy images so that the core and spiral arms can both be seen equally clearly
  • Image processing is the name for this process of selecting data, adjusting colour, contrast and dynamic range to reveal the hidden detail in Hubble’s scientific data.
Mars Base

Crowdsourcing the Hunt for Potentially Dangerous Asteroids - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...otentially-dangerous-asteroids

scibyte47 Asteroid crowdsourcing

shared by Mars Base on 16 May 12 - No Cached
  • new partnership between the European Space Agency and the Faulkes Telescope Project, which will encourage amateur astronomers to look for asteroids
  • providing educational opportunities that will allow students to discover potentially dangerous space rocks, too.
  • ESA’s Space Situational Awareness (SSA) program is part of an international effort to be on the lookout for space hazards – not only asteroids but disruptive space weather and space debris objects in Earth orbit
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • asteroids pose a problem
  • hard to see because they can be very dark
  • can approach rather too close before anyone sees them
  • often spotted only once and then disappear before the discovery can be confirmed.
  • ESA is turning to schools and amateur astronomers to help as part of Europe’s contribution to the global asteroid hunt
  • UK’s Faulkes Telescope Project will become the latest team to formally support the SSA program
  • Spain’s La Sagra Sky Survey, operated by the Observatorio Astronomico de Mallorca, began helping SSA earlier this year
  • The Faulkes project has two telescopes where you can sign up for observing online: Haleakala, Hawaii
  • and Siding Spring, Australia
  • For European students, collaborating on exciting ESA activities and possibly detecting new NEOs is very appealing, as its engagement with one of the world’s great space agencies doing critical scientific work.”
  • While the Faulkes project focuses on schools
  • amateurs will be able to freely access the data archives
  • archives are also open to all, and they work
  • Since starting their SSA-sponsored survey work in January 2010, the TOTAS amateur astronomers have identified hundreds of asteroid candidates, over 20 of which have been confirmed and named.
Mars Base

February 20 - Today in Science History - Scientists born on February 20th, died, and ev... - 0 views

todayinsci.com/2_20.htm

scibyte120 LookingBackFeb

shared by Mars Base on 15 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Glenn in orbit
  • In 1962, John Glenn piloted the Mercury-Atlas 6 Friendship 7 spacecraft on the first U.S. manned orbital mission. Launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, he completed three-orbits around the earth, at a maximum altitude of approx. 162 miles and an orbital velocity of approx. 17,500 mph. He spotted Perth, Australia, when that city's residents greeted him by switching on their house lights in unison. A four-cent U.S. stamp was put on sale the same day, making it the first U.S. stamp issued on the day of the event it commemorated. Glenn returned to space 36 years later, making 134 more orbits as a crew member of the space shuttle Discovery (29 Oct - 7 Nov 1998) for investigations on space flight and the aging process.
  • In 1986, the Soviet Union launched into orbit Mir, a new space station. Mir, the Russian word for peace, had six docking ports and special laboratories for scientific research. Weeks later, a veteran crew was sent to man the 56-ft-long and 13.6-ft wide station. The core module provided living quarters for the cosmonauts: galley/table, cooking elements and storage, individual crew cabins and personal hygiene area. They also had a working compartment for monitoring and commanding the core systems supported by an electric power system, thermal control system, computer systems, environmental control and life support, communications and tracking systems. Five additional modules were launched between Mar 1987 and April 1996
  • ...4 more annotations...
  •  Space station Mir
  • In 1937, the first a successful automobile-airplane combination was complete and ready for testing.The first flight took place the next day, 21 Feb 1937. Built by the Westerman Arrowplane Corporation of Santa Monica, Cal., the vehicle was dubbed the Arrowbile, and claimed a top air-speed of 120 mph and 70 mph on a highway. Designed by aeroengineer Waldo Dean Waterman (1894-1976), it evolved from the prototype Arrowplane, a project to design a simple, easy to fly, low cost airplane. The Studebaker Corporation, which supplied the 100 hp engines, eventually took delivery of five Arrowbiles
  • Car airplane
  • Car airplane
Mars Base

Astronauts Hail Skydiver Felix Baumgartner's Record-Breaking Supersonic Jump | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/eaction-felix-baumgartner.html

scibyte67 RedBullStratos

shared by Mars Base on 15 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • " I didn't feel a sonic boom because I was so busy just trying to stabilize myself,"
  • went into a tough spin at the jump's beginning. "It was really a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.
  • Several NASA and ESA astronauts
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • noted that the skydiver was the fourth-highest person near Earth, beat only by the three astronauts living on the International Space Station,
Mars Base

ESTCube-1 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/ESTCube-1

scibyte86 ESTCube

shared by Mars Base on 13 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • scheduled to be launched to orbit in second half of 2013
  • Student Satellite is an educational project that university and high school students can participate in
  • The CubeSat standard for nanosatellites was followed during the engineering of ESTCube-1, resulting in a 10x10x11.35 cm cube, with a volume of 1 liter and a mass of 1.048 kg.
  • ...44 more annotations...
  • According to the CubeSat standard there are three different sized CubeSats corresponding to size 1U, 2U and 3U. Base side lengths are the same but height is 2 to 3 times bigger than 1U CubeSats
  • Mass is also set in CubeSat standard, the highest possible mass for 1U CubeSat is 1300 grams, 2U CubeSat 2600 grams and 3U CubeSat 4000 grams
  • CubeSat base side length must be 100.0±0.1 millimeters and satellite height must be 113.5±0.1 mm
  • the Estonian satellite
  • a 1U CubeSat
  • Although
  • its main purpose was to educate students, the satellite does have a scientific purpose.
  • On board of the satellite is an electric solar wind sail (e-sail) which was created by a Finnish scientist Pekka Janhunen
  • it is the first real experimentation of the e-sail
  • 10 meters of e-sail 50 to 20 micrometers thick wire of high-technology structure so-called Heytether will be deployed from the satellite.
  • The deployment of the Heytether can be detected by decrease of the satellite's speed of rotation or by a on-board camera
  • To control the loaded solar wind sail elements interaction with the plasma surrounding the earth and the effect it has on the spacecraft spinning speed the spacecraft has two on-board nanotechnologic electron emitters/gun
  • The electron emitters are connected to the e-sail element and by shooting out electrons it loads the e-sail element positively to 500 volts
  • The positive ions in the plasma push the e-sail element and have an influence on the satellites rotation speed
  • The effect of the e-sail is measured by the change in rotation speed
  • The camera is used to take a picture of Earth and the successfully deployed Heytether. [edit]
  • ESTCube-1 will be sent to orbit by the European Space Agency's rocket Vega in spring of 2013
  • Start in spring of 2013
  • Half an hour after the satellites deployment from the start capsule satellites antennas will be opened and radio transmitter and important subsystems will be switched on
  • First days or weeks will be used to test the satellite and set it to work on full capacity.
  • Orienting the satellite so the on-board camera will be faced to earth
  • trying to take a picture of Estonia
  • Rotating the satellite on an axis with a speed of 1 revolution per second
  • E-sail element deployment from the satellite by a centrifugal force and confirming the deployment via the on-board camera
  • Activating the electron emitter and loading the e-sail
  • Measuring the e-sails and Lorentz force by satellites revolutions per second
  • If possible using the negatively charged e-sail to take the satellite off orbit and burn it in the earths atmosphere
  • If everything goes perfect the mission can be completed within a few weeks to a month
  • Lifespan of the satellite
  • Measurements and weight
  • Scientific purpose
  • Communicating with the satellite
  • held by two International Amateur Radio Unions three registered frequencies
  • Periodic but very slow communication is done on a telegraphic signal on a frequency of 437.250 MHz
  • the most important satellite parameters are transmitted every 3 to 5 minutes
  • For fast connections FSK-modulation radio signal on a frequency of 437.505 MHz with a 9600 baud connection speed and AX.25 standard is used.
  • Somewhat slow connection speed is caused by the usage of amateur radio frequencies which allow a maximum of 25 kiloherz bandwidth
  • Fast connection is used only when the satellite has been given a specific
  • Using the GFSK-modulation maximum possible connection speed is 19,200 bits per second
  • Software
  • FreeRTOS on the satellite's Command and Data Handling System and camera module
  • TinyOS on the satellite's communication module
  • Financing and costs
  • Cheapest possibility to send a satellite onto orbit is offered by European Space Agency. Because Estonia is an associated member of ESA most of the launch expenses (about 70,000 euros) will be covered from Estonian member fee for educational expenses. With the launch total expenses for the project are approximately 100,000 euros.
Mars Base

Recent Satellite Crashes Bring Space Junk Problem Into Public Eye | Space Junk & Orbita... - 0 views

www.space.com/shes-public-consciousness.html

scibyte29 satellite crash multimedia

shared by Mars Base on 13 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • 12 January 2012
  • news that a failed Russian Mars probe will come crashing back to Earth in the next few days
  • public perception that the sky is falling —
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • huge pieces of space junk could rain down on us at any moment.
  • Phobos-Grunt spacecraft
  • re-enter the atmosphere sometime between Saturday and Monday (Jan. 14 to Jan. 16).
  • the third uncontrolled satellite re-entry in four months
  • claims are handled on a case-by-case basis, you might be surprised to learn damage from satellite debris, aka space junk, likely would be covered under most insurance policies
  • Farmers Insurance, aired a commercial during this winter's college football bowl games offering similar assurances to its current and potential customers.
  • Experts predict that Russia's failed Mars probe Phobos-Grunt will crash back to Earth in mid-January 2012. This artist's concept shows fuel burning from a ruptured fuel tank as the spacecraft re-enters the atmosphere.CREDIT: Michael Carroll
  • NASA estimates that our planet's orbital debris cloud contains more than 500,000 pieces larger than a marble and more than 20,000 at least as big as a softball
  • space junk poses little threat to people on the ground. Most pieces of falling satellites burn up the atmosphere
  • the bits that make it through are likely to land harmlessly in the ocean or on uninhabited land
  • To date, nobody is known to have been injured by a chunk of falling debris.
  • poses a real threat to the craft that orbit and observe our planet and provide navigation and telecommunications services
  • 2009, for example, the Iridium 33 communications satellite was destroyed when it slammed into a defunct Russian satellite.
  • This computer illustration depicts the density of space junk around Earth in low-Earth orbit.CREDIT: ESA
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