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Mars Base

Space College: ISEE-3 Reboot Project Archives - 0 views

  • It has 4 large antennas that span 91 meters and it spins
  • once every 3 seconds
  • Using GNU Radio to Talk to ISEE-3
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • What ISEE-3 Really Looks Like
  • successfully
  • uplink commands to the space craft
  • accomplished through a lot of team work, strong leadership
  • and generous support from the community at large
  • designed a deep-space uplink modulator in a couple of days,
  • products like the Ettus Research USRP, the open source SDR framework GNU Radio have made this exceedingly easy.
  • 12 June 2014
  • telemetry from ISEE-3 indicating that its entire suite of science instruments is powered up and has been powered up since NASA last commanded the spacecraft many years ago
  • getting data back from the magentometer that indicates that science data is coming back
  • Just because an instrument is powered up doesn't mean that it is functioning normally
  • some of the ISEE-3 instruments had begun to fail or become partially functional as early as 1982
  • plans to briefly fire two of the spacecraft's thrusters on 21 June so as to spin it up from 19.16 rpm to the mission specification of 19.75 +/- 0.2 rpm
  • spin-up target is 19.733 rpm
  • This burn would utilize spin-up thrusters A and B
  • This optimal spin rate is required in order to properly fire the axial thrusters during the much longer trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) we need to perform to adjust the spacecraft's course
Mars Base

Heavily decorated classrooms disrupt attention and learning in young children -- Scienc... - 0 views

  • materials tend to cover elementary classroom wall
  • new research from Carnegie Mellon University shows that too much
  • may end up disrupting attention and learning in young children
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  • whether classroom displays affected children's ability to maintain focus during instruction and to learn the lesson content
  • They found that children in highly decorated classrooms were more distracted, spent more time off-task and demonstrated smaller learning gains than when the decorations were removed
  • a classroom's visual environment can affect how much children learn
  • do not suggest by any means that this is the answer to all educational problems
  • additional research is needed to know what effect the classroom visual environment has on children's attention and learning in real classrooms
  • consider whether some of their visual displays may be distracting
  • 24 kindergarten students were placed in laboratory classrooms for six introductory science lessons on topics they were unfamiliar with
  • Three lessons were taught in a heavily decorated classroom, and three lessons were given in a sparse classroom.
  • results showed that while children learned in both classroom types, they learned more when the room was not heavily decorated
  • children's accuracy on the test questions was higher in the sparse classroom(55 percent correct) than in the decorated classroom(42 percent correct).
  • when the researchers tallied all of the time children spent off-task in both types of classrooms, the rate of off-task behavior was higher in the decorated classroom (38.6 percent time spent off-task) than in the sparse classroom (28.4 percent time spent off-task)
  • also interested in finding out if the visual displays were removed, whether the children's attention would shift to another distraction
  •  
    Heavily decorated classrooms disrupt attention and learning in young children
Mars Base

Using thoughts to control airplanes -- ScienceDaily - 0 views

  • Scientists have now demonstrated the feasibility of flying via brain control -- with astonishing accuracy
  • first breakthrough
  • succeeded in demonstrating that brain-controlled flight is indeed possible -- with amazing precision
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  • Seven subjects took part in the flight simulator tests
  • They had varying levels of flight experience, including one person without any practical cockpit experience whatsoever
  • The accuracy with which the test subjects stayed on course by merely thinking commands would have sufficed, in part, to fulfill the requirements of a flying license test
  • Several of the subjects also managed the landing approach under poor visibility
  • scientists are now focusing in particular on the question of how the requirements for the control system and flight dynamics need to be altered to accommodate the new control method
  • Normally, pilots feel resistance in steering and must exert significant force when the loads induced on the aircraft become too large
  • This feedback is missing when using brain control
  • The researchers are thus looking for alternative methods of feedback to signal when the envelope is pushed too hard, for example
  •  
    Using thoughts to control airplanes
Mars Base

ISEE-3 Reboot Project | Astronomy News - 0 views

  • The IEEE-3 spacecraft was launched on 12 August 1978
  • Originally the mission was cooperative effort between NASA and ESRO/ESA to study the interaction between the Earth’s magnetic field and the solar wind.
  • On 10 June 1982 IEEE-3 became the International Cometary Explorer with the primary scientific objective of ICE was to study the interaction between the solar wind and a cometary atmosphere
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  • The mission required the spacecraft to leave the Earth/moon system and orbit around the sun instead
  • After encounters with comet Giacobini-Zinner in 1985 and the famous Halley’s comet in 1986 and the study of CME’s from the sun in 1991, the “plug” was pulled in the spacecraft on 5 May 1997
Mars Base

May 29 - Today in Science History - Scientists born on May 29th, died, and events - 0 views

  • Einstein's relativity theory proved
  • In 1919, a solar eclipse permitted observation of the bending of starlight passing through the sun's gravitational field, as predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. Separate expeditions of the Royal Astronomical Society travelled to Brazil and off the west coast of Africa. Both made measurements of the position of stars visible close to the sun during a solar eclipse. These observations showed that, indeed, the light of stars was bent as it passed through the gravitational field of the sun. This was a key prediction of Albert Einstein's theory that gravity affected energy as in addition to the familiar effect on matter. The verification of predictions of Einstein's theory, proved during the solar eclipse was a dramatic landmark scientific event.
Mars Base

Hubble Sees Jupiter's Red Spot Shrink to Smallest Size Ever - 0 views

  • “Recent Hubble Space Telescope observations confirm that the spot is now just under  10,250 miles (16,500 km) across, the smallest diameter we’ve ever measured,” said Amy Simon of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Cente
  • Using historic sketches and photos from the late 1800s, astronomers determined the spot’s diameter then at 25,475 miles (41,000 km) across
  • Amateur observations starting in 2012 revealed a noticeable increase in the spot’s shrinkage rate
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  • The spot’s “waistline” is getting smaller by just under 620 miles (1,000 km) per year while its north-south extent has changed little
  • the spot has
  • become more circular in shape
  • what causing the drastic downsizing, there are no firm answers yet:
  • new observations
  • very small eddies are feeding into the storm
  • may be responsible for the accelerated change by altering the internal dynamics of the Great Red Spot
  • The Great Red Spot has been a trademark of the planet for at least 400 years
  • a giant hurricane-like storm whirling in the planet’s upper cloud tops with a period of 6 days
  • The storm appears to be conserving angular momentum by spinning faster the same way an ice skater spins up when she pulls in her arms
  • Wind speeds are increasing too, making one wonder whether they’ll ultimately shrink the spot further or bring about its rejuvenation.
Mars Base

International Cometary Explorer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • Original mission: International Sun/Earth Explorer 3 (ISEE-3)
  • to investigate solar-terrestrial relationships at the outermost boundaries of the Earth's magnetosphere
  • to examine in detail the structure of the solar wind near the Earth and the shock wave that forms the interface between the solar wind and Earth's magnetosphere
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  • investigate motions of and mechanisms operating in the plasma sheets
  • continue the investigation of cosmic rays and solar flare emissions in the interplanetary region near 1 AU
  • Second mission: International Cometary Explorer
  • On June 10, 1982, after completing its original mission, ISEE-3 was repurposed. It was renamed the International Cometary Explorer (ICE)
  • The primary scientific objective of ICE was to study the interaction between the solar wind and a cometary atmosphere
  • a series of lunar orbits over the next 15 months. Its last and closest pass over the Moon, on December 22, 1983, was a mere 119.4 km above the Moon's surface. By the beginning of 1984, ICE was in heliocentric orbit
  • Giacobini-Zinner encounter
  • on a trajectory intercepting that of Comet Giacobini-Zinner.
  • On 11 September 1985, the craft passed through the plasma tail of Comet Giacobini-Zinner
  • ICE carried no cameras. It instead carried instruments for measurements of energetic particles, waves, plasmas, and fields
  • Halley encounter
  • transited between the Sun and Comet Halley in late March 1986, when other spacecraft
  • were in the vicinity of Comet Halley
  • ICE flew through the tail
  • Heliospheric mission
  • mission was approved by NASA in 1991
  • consisting of investigations of coronal mass ejections in coordination with ground-based observations
  • End of mission
  • On May 5, 1997, NASA ended the ICE mission, and ordered the probe shut down, with only a carrier signal left operating
  • Further contact
  • In 1999, NASA made brief contact with ICE to verify its carrier signal. On September 18, 2008
  • NASA, with the help of KinetX, located ICE using the Deep Space Network after discovering that it had not been powered off after the 1999 contact
  • status check revealed that all but one of its 13 experiments were still functioning, and it still has enough propellant
  • Reboot effort
  • A team webpage said, "We intend to contact the ISEE-3 (International Sun-Earth Explorer) spacecraft, command it to fire its engine and enter an orbit near Earth, and then resume its original mission...If we are successful we intend to facilitate the sharing and interpretation of all of the new data ISEE-3 sends back via crowd sourcing."
  • Sometime after NASA's interest in the ICE waned
  • A team of engineers, programmers, and scientists
  • realized that the spacecraft might be steered to pass close to another comet
  • began to study the feasibility and challenges involved
  • On May 15, 2014, the project reached its crowdfunding goal
  • which will cover the costs of writing the software to communicate with the probe, searching through the NASA archives for the information needed to control the spacecraft, and buying time on the dish antennas
  • The project then set a 'stretch' goal of $150,000
  • The project members are working on deadline: if they get the spacecraft to change its orbit by late May or early June 2014, it can use the Moon's gravity to get back into a useful halo orbit.
  • Earlier in 2014, officials with the Goddard Space Flight Center had said that the Deep Space Network equipment necessary to transmit signals to the spacecraft had been decommissioned in 1999, and that replacing it was not economically feasible
  • oject members obtained the needed hardware (power amplifier, modulator/demodulator[12]), and installed it on the 305-meter Arecibo dish antenna on May 19, 2014
  • Although NASA is not funding the project, it made advisors available and gave approval to try to establish contact
  • On May 21, 2014, NASA announced that it had signed a Non-Reimbursable Space Act Agreement with the ISEE-3 Reboot Project
  • "This is the first time NASA has worked such an agreement for use of a spacecraft the agency is no longer using or ever planned to use again," officials said
Mars Base

Guest Post: No turning back, NASA ISEE-3 Spacecraft Returning to Earth after a 36 Year ... - 0 views

  • 30 years later and documents and magnetic tapes have predictably disappeared.
  • The software and hardware to program, command and transmit to ISEE-3 are long gone
  • An independent team of engineers
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  • recovering old imagery on magnetic tape reels from the first lunar orbiter missions),
  • operating outside the ranks and hallways of NASA
  • to accomplish a landmark achievement: to turn on, command and maneuver a NASA spacecraft long ago abandoned
  • Amateur radio operators now have technology sufficient to acquire the signal and through the internet are also a part of the recovery effort
  • without the original hardware transmitter, today’s high-speed electronics are able to emulate in software the hardware from 36 years ago
Mars Base

ISEE-3 Reboot Project Status and Schedule for First Contact - Space College - 0 views

  • Technical Progress The Learning Curve
  • reliminary evaluation of the spacecraft and its systems so as to better understand it.
  • Most of the best information that we have been able to find has been from the people who worked on the project in the 1980's when the spacecraft was fully operational
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  • have also obtained several documents from NASA as part of the development of our Space Act Agreement
  • Since there is no computer on board the ISEE-3 spacecraft our task is actually much easier since we are going to be directly commanding various subsystems
  • This is an ongoing process and we have, as usual, dug some of the pertinent information out of 35 year old IEEE or AIAA papers that are publicly available
  • The ISEE-3/ICE spacecraft was never really designed to be an interplanetary cruiser and thus the thrusters on board are very small
  • estimate that if we wait until mid-June to do the course correction that it will take 17 hours of thrusting to get the course change of about 40 meters/second that we will need at that time
Mars Base

Curiosity says 'Goodbye Kimberley' after Parting Laser Blasts and Seeking New Adventure... - 0 views

  • NASA’s rover Curiosity said ‘Goodbye Kimberley’ having fulfilled her objectives of drilling into a cold red sandstone slab
  • sampling the
  • grey colored interior and pelting the fresh bore hole with a pinpoint series of parting laser blasts
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  • Since then, the 1 ton robot carefully scrutinized the resulting 2.6 inches (6.5 centimeters) deep bore hole
  • the mound of dark grey colored drill tailings piled around for an up close examination of the texture and composition with the MAHLI camera and spectrometers
  • successfully delivered pulverized and sieved samples to the pair of onboard miniaturized chemistry labs
  • Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument (CheMin)
  • Sample Analysis at Mars instrument (SAM)
  • for chemical and compositional analysis.
  • rover’s
  • decided that one drill campaign into Kimberley was enough.
  • So the rover will not be drilling into any other rock targets here
  • it may be a very long time before the next drilling
  • the guiding team of scientists and engineers wants
  • arrive at the foothills of Mount Sharp as soon as possible.
  • further analysis of the ‘Windjana’ sample along the way
  • there’s plenty of leftover sample material stored in the CHIMRA sample processing mechanism to allow future delivery of samples when the rover periodically pauses during driving.
  • Windjama lies some 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) southwest of Yellowknife Bay
  • still has about another 4 kilometers to go to reach the foothills of Mount Sharp sometime later this year
Mars Base

Images - Mars Science Laboratory - 0 views

  • Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover shows the rock target "Windjana" and its immediate surroundings after inspection of the site by the rover
  • The drilling of a test hole and a sample collection hole produced the mounds of drill cuttings that are markedly less red than the other visible surfaces
  • The open hole from sample collection is 0.63 inch (1.6 centimeters) in diameter. It was drilled on Sol 621 (May 5, 2014).
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  • preparatory "mini drill" hole, to lower right from the open hole, was drilled on Sol 615 (April 29, 2014) and subsequently filled in with cuttings from the sample collection drilling.
  • The vigorous activity of penetrating the rock with the rover's hammering drill also resulted in slides of loose material near the rock
Mars Base

May 28 - Today in Science History - Scientists born on May 28th, died, and events - 0 views

  • Mars landing
  • In 1971, the U.S.S.R. Mars 3 was launched. It arrived at Mars on December 2, 1971. The lander was released from the Mars 3 orbiter and became the first spacecraft to land successfully on Mars. It failed after relaying 20 seconds of video data to the orbiter. The Mars 3 orbiter returned data until Aug 1972, sending measurements of surface temperature and atmospheric composition. The first USSR Mars probe was launched 10 Oct 1960, but it failed to reach earth orbit. The next four USSR probes, including Mars 1, also failed. The USA Mariner 3 Mars Flyby attempt in 1964 failed when its solar panels did not open. USA's Mariners 4, 6, and 7 successfully returned Mars photos. Also in 1971, the USSR Mars 2 lander crashed.
  • Animals in space
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  • In 1959, Rhesus monkey Abel and squirrel monkey Baker, both female, were launched for a brief suborbital space flight in the nose cone of Jupiter Missile AM-18. They reached 300 miles altitude, and travelled 1500 miles at speeds over 10,000 mph. Heart rate and sounds, body temperature, blood pressure and radiation were monitored, plus muscle performance by electromyogram. Abel was trained to tap a switch when a red light flashed, to collect data on performance. After the mission, their successful recovery was the first for living beings. The monkeys survived the flight. Afterwards Able died during anesthesia as doctors were about to remove an electrode from under her skin. Baker died of kidney failure in 1984 at age 27.
Mars Base

June 2 - Today in Science History - Scientists born on June 2nd, died, and events - 0 views

  • Donati comet
  • In 1858, the Donati Comet was first seen and named after its discoverer, Giovanni Battista Donati, at Florence. It was the second-brightest comet of the nineteenth century It reached perihelion on 30 Sep 1858. When nearest the earth on 9 Oct 1858, it was about 0.5 AU away, and had developed a scimitar-shaped triple tail. At that time, its very prominent dust tail had with an apparent length of 50°, more than half the distance from the horizon to the zenith, a linear distance of over 72 million km (about 45 million mi). It was the first comet to be photographed. With an orbital period estimated at more than 2000 years, it will not return until about the year 4000. An astronomical unit, AU, equals 93 million miles, the Sun-Earth distance.
Mars Base

May 30 - Today in Science History - Scientists born on May 30th, died, and events - 0 views

  • Mars probe
  • In 1971, the U.S. Mars space probe Mariner 9 blasted off from Cape Kennedy, Florida. It carried cameras, infrared spectrometer and radiometer, ultraviolet spectrometer, radio occultation and celestial mechanics instruments. On 13 Nov 1971, it entered orbit as the first artificial satellite of Mars. After waiting for a month-long planet-wide dust storm to clear, it began compiling a global mosaic of high-quality images for 100% of the Martian surface. The photos showed gigantic volcanoes, a grand canyon stretching 4,800 kilometers (3,000 miles) and relics of ancient riverbeds that were carved in the landscape of this seemingly dry and dusty planet. It also sent the first closeup pictures of the two Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos.
Mars Base

This Week's Sky at a Glance, May 23 - 31 | Sky & Telescope - 0 views

  • Wednesday, May 28
  • New Moon
  • (exact at 2:40 p.m. EDT)
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  • Friday, May 30
  • very low in the west-northwest in twilight for the hairline crescent Moon with Mercury to its right. They're far to the lower right of bright Jupiter
  • Saturday, May 31
  • The Moon, Jupiter, and Pollux above them form a nearly straight line in twilight as seen from North America
  • Mercury
  • highest evening apparition of 2014 for skywatchers at mid-northern latitudes,
  • fades this week
  • twilight deepens, look for it in the west-northwest to the lower right of bright Jupiter
  • Venus
  • "Morning Star" low due east during dawn
  • Mars (
  • ighest in the south in late twilight
  • Mars sets in the west around 3 or 4 a.m. daylight saving time
  • Jupiter
  • in the west in twilight
  • sinks during the evening and sets around 11 or midnight.
  • Jupiter is on the far side of the Sun from us
  • nearly its minimum apparent size.
  • Saturn
  • is two weeks past 10th opposition.
  • in the southeast during evening and stands highest in the south around 11 or midnight.
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